In 2016 Hands Up for Trad are launching a new initiative – The Landmark Awards. We are doing this to record the amazing landmarks that many cultural organisations and performers reach. The Clarsach Society have been doing amazing work for 85 years and they at receiving our first Landmark Award which will be presented at The Harp Festival on 4th April 2016.
The Clarsach Society was formed in 1931 at the close of the National Mod in Dingwall by a group of enthusiasts who were determined that the oldest of Scotland’s musical instruments should flourish.
The harp had all but disappeared in the late 18th century and had been revived thanks to Lord Archibald Campbell, the first president of An Comunn Gaidhealach, who had instigated a competition for self-accompaniment of Gaelic song on the clarsach at the first Gaelic Mod in 1892.
Clarsach Society logo
Lord Campbell had also commissioned instrument makers in Edinburgh and Glasgow to make harps based on the Queen Mary harp, which can be seen in the National Museum of Scotland. With the first stated aim of the Society – “to promote and encourage the playing of the clarsach” – in mind, further models were commissioned and made available to people who had expressed an interest in playing.
Thus began one of the Society’s most important roles and today the Society has one hundred and twenty-eight harps that it hires out to beginners.
Edinburgh was the first branch, formed in 1932, quickly followed by Glasgow the same year and London, in 1933. Today there are twelve branches throughout the UK as well as an international branch devoted to the wire harp. Each has a different character but all have the same motivation: to promote the instrument and help players.