Heavenly Harps

Recently, Lonny Shavelson attended a gathering of some 40 international harpists and groups of harpists gathered in Oakland, California. The idea behind this Festival of Harps was to move harp music beyond traditional conventions of European classical music.

That wasn’t hard to do, given that the harps included folk instruments from Africa to Paraguay.

Audio: BBC, PRI & WGBH's The World, October 26. Host: Jeb Sharp.