| Salvi Harps | |
| Type | privately-held stock corporation |
| Industry | musical instruments manufacturing |
| Founded | 1956 |
| Founder | Victor Salvi |
| Headquarters | Via Rossana, 7 12026, , |
Key people | Marco Salvi (President) |
| Products | harps |
Number of employees | 90 |
| Subsidiaries | Lyon & Healy, Bow Brand |
| Website | www.salviharps.com |
Salvi Harps is an Italian manufacturer of concert harps. The company was founded by Italian-American harpist and harpmaker Victor Salvi in 1956. [1] [2]
The father of company founder Victor (Vittorio) Salvi was an Italian luthier, piano and harp maker from Venice who worked in Viggiano, a town in Southern Italy known for its musical instruments before emigrating to the United States together with his wife in 1913. [3] Victor Salvi was born in Chicago in 1920. Like his siblings Alberto and Aida, he learned to play the harp and became harpist of the United States Navy Band during World War II and later with the New York Philharmonic and with the NBC Symphony Orchestra.
During his career as a harpist, he started – first spurred by a shortage of parts during the war – to continue his family tradition in instrument making, repaired harps in Chicago and built his first harp in New York City in 1954.
In 1956, Salvi founded a harp making business in Genoa under the name of "N.S.M.", which stands for "nuovi strumenti musicali" (new musical instruments). In 1974, the workshop was moved to Piasco, a village close to the town of Saluzzo in Piedmont, which has a long tradition in woodworking. For the strings, Salvi acquired British string maker Bow Brand, while the mechanics were manufactured in Switzerland.
In 1987, Salvi Harps acquired the insolvent U.S. harp manufacturing company Lyon & Healy of Chicago, which had been founded in 1889 and which is the only other large manufacturer of concert harps. [1] [2] [4]
Salvi is one of the most important manufacturers of high-quality harps. [1] About 90 employees make about 2,000 harps a year from spruce and maple wood, about half of which are concert (double action) harps, and the remaining lever and electroacoustic harps.
The subsidiary Lyon & Healy employs about 135 staff in Chicago.
The company-owned museum Museo dell'Arpa Victor Salvi in Piasco was opened in 2006 and houses a significant collection of historic harps. [5] [3]
The Fondazione Victor Salvi was founded in 2000 and supports harp playing worldwide. It organizes competitions, offers scholarships, commissions new works for the harp and lends instruments. [3]
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, including standing or sitting and in orchestras or concerts. Its most common form is triangular in shape and made of wood. Some have multiple rows of strings and pedal attachments.
Lyon & Healy Harps, Inc. is an American musical instrument manufacturer based in Chicago, Illinois and is a subsidiary of Salvi Harps. Today best known for concert harps, the company's Chicago headquarters and manufacturing facility contains a showroom and concert hall. George W. Lyon and Patrick J. Healy began the company in 1864 as a sheet music shop. By the end of the 19th century, they manufactured a wide range of musical instruments—including not only harps, but pianos, guitars, mandolins, banjos, ukuleles and various brass and other percussion instruments.
A mandolin is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a plectrum. It most commonly has four courses of doubled metal strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 strings, although five and six course versions also exist. The courses are typically tuned in a interval of perfect fifths, with the same tuning as a violin. Also like the violin, it is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass.
Catgut is a type of cord that is prepared from the natural fiber found in the walls of animal intestines. Catgut makers usually use sheep or goat intestines, but occasionally use the intestines of cattle, hogs, horses, mules, or donkeys. Despite the name, catgut manufacturers do not use cat intestines.
Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine, with funding from Grosset & Dunlap and Curtis Publishing Company. It has since been purchased several times by companies including National General, Carl Lindner's American Financial and, most recently, Bertelsmann; it became part of Random House in 1998, when Bertelsmann purchased it to form Bantam Doubleday Dell. It began as a mass market publisher, mostly of reprints of hardcover books, with some original paperbacks as well. It expanded into both trade paperback and hardcover books, including original works, often reprinted in house as mass-market editions.
The electric harp is an instrument based on its acoustic original. There are both solid-body and hollow body electro-acoustic models available. True electric harps have a solid body versus a hollow body electro-acoustic harp, which can be played either acoustically or electronically. A true electric solid-body harp cannot be played acoustically since it has no hollow soundbox, and must be amplified when played.
The cross-strung harp or chromatic double harp is a multi-course harp that has two rows of strings which intersect without touching. While accidentals are played on the pedal harp via the pedals and on the lever harp with levers, the cross-strung harp features two rows so that each of the twelve semitones of the chromatic scale has its own string.
Carlos Salzedo was a French harpist, pianist, composer and conductor. His compositions made the harp into a virtuoso instrument. He influenced many composers with his new ideas for the harp's sounds through his work with the International Composers' Guild. His many harp students performed in prominent orchestras.
The triple harp is a type of multi-course harp employing three parallel rows of strings instead of the more common single row. One common version is the Welsh triple harp, used today mainly among players of traditional Welsh folk music.
The pedal harp is a large and technologically modern harp, designed primarily for use in art music. It may be played solo, as part of a chamber ensemble, or in an orchestra. It typically has 47 strings giving a range of six and a half octaves.
Salvi may refer to:
The Official Harpist to the Prince of Wales is a position within the Royal Household. In 2000, Charles, Prince of Wales revived a tradition of having Welsh harpists, which was the first time the post has been occupied since it was last granted to John Thomas in 1871 by Queen Victoria.
Marin Yvonne Ireland is an American actress, who is known for her work in theatre, and was described by The New York Times as "one of the great drama queens of the New York stage."
Aristid von Würtzler Hungarian-American harpist, composer, leader of the New York Harp Ensemble.
Victor Salvi ; was an American-born harpist, harp maker, and entrepreneur. Salvi, who has been called "harpmaker of the world", was of Italian descent. Born in Chicago, Illinois, he immigrated back to Italy several years into his professional career. Credited for transforming the harp industry, he began his career as a musician, and turned to building harps.
Markus Klinko is an international fashion/celebrity photographer. and director,
Helena Stone Torgerson was an American harpist and composer of harp music, based in Chicago.
Alexander Boldachev, also known as Sasha Boldachev, is a music composer, arranger, teacher and virtuoso harpist based in Zurich, Switzerland. He is a recipient of the 2018 Aoyama Music Award in Japan. Boldachev has received multiple awards for his music in the USA, Japan, England, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Bulgaria, Russia and France. Boldachev is also a guest soloist at Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow and an official artist of Salvi Harps. He is the founder of the Zurich Harp Festival and holds dual citizenship in Russia and Switzerland.
