Click on the image or name for details on these Hybrid Series models.
The Conservatory The Butterfly
The Hybrid Harp Series grew, as my designs always do, out of my desire to play a harp that didn't exist yet. I had spent a number of years playing a Paraguayan harp, enthralled by its punchy sound, light weight, and ease of playing.
Over time I experienced the both the strengths and limitations of these harps. For example, their strings are very light, which make them weak on linear passages such as are needed for Celtic tunes. Having played Celtic harps for years before that, I knew their strengths and weaknesses as well.
Since Latin American harps are the direct descendants of the Baroque harps of Europe, they have played a large part in this evolution, as have the Welsh triple-strungs (which I have loved and studied for many years).
It was the invention of Dynamic Tension Balancing that paved the way for this entirely new line of harp development. What's coming of it is a growing series of harps that are strong, lightweight, remarkably stress-balanced, and stable (for some reason, harps which use the Dynamic Tension Balancing come up to pitch quickly, and stay there).
At first, harp players who saw the Butterfly would say, "Oh, you've made a baby Paraguayan." I'd have to explain that it's really a Celtic harp in disguise that's taking advantage of some wonderful innovations that have occurred in Latin America over the last generation or so. Then they would play one, and I'd know that they had "got it." Besides their playability, their tone is richer and bigger than other harps of comparable size. And the ease of tuning…!