The wider circle.
The crwth and the telyn were never made in solitude — they lived among singers, poets, and the gathered awen (inspiration) of the bardic tradition. This is the wider circle: the societies keeping the old forms, the players who carry them, the scholars who trace them back, the makers who still bend wood to the shape of an old voice, and the Celtic diaspora scattered across the world. Wales is the heart of it, but the road runs on into Ireland, Scotland and beyond. Each link is a door.
Welsh societies & institutions
The keepers of the flame — those who tend the living tradition of telyn and crwth in Wales.
- Cymdeithas y Delyn Deires — the Welsh Triple Harp Society
Devoted to the telyn deires, gathering the players and makers who keep its three rows of strings sounding.
- Canolfan y Delyn Deires — National Centre for the Welsh Triple Harp
A national centre near Tal-y-llyn, opened to raise the profile of the Welsh triple harp.
- Clera — Society for the Traditional Instruments of Wales
The home of Wales's older instruments — crwth, pibgorn, and the harp among them.
- Trac Cymru — folk development for Wales
Custodians of Welsh folk music, with sessions, workshops, and the young players carrying the tunes on.
- Trac Cymru — sessions & tune clubs directory
Where to sit in — real gatherings across Wales, to learn a tune by ear rather than by page.
- Cymdeithas Cerdd Dant Cymru — the Cerdd Dant Society
The society of cerdd dant, the art of singing a counter-melody over the harp; runs the annual festival.
- Canu Gwerin — the Welsh Folk Song Society
Founded in 1906 to collect and keep Welsh folk song, and a doorway on to kindred voices.
- Cymdeithas Ddawns Werin Cymru — Welsh Folk Dance Society
Keepers of Welsh traditional dance, bound tightly to the harp, crwth and pibgorn tune traditions.
- Tŷ Cerdd — Music Centre Wales
The national body for Welsh music, with a dedicated fund for the traditional forms.
- Tŷ Siamas — National Centre for Welsh Folk Music
In Dolgellau, named for the maker who first built a triple harp in Wales; lessons, studio, exhibition.
- Canolfan Gerdd William Mathias
A Caernarfon music centre and organiser of the Wales Harp Festival.
- The Bagpipe Society — guide to the Welsh pibgorn
An authoritative guide to the pibgorn, the crwth's reed-voiced companion in the old Welsh music.
Festivals & eisteddfodau
The gatherings where the old music is still heard aloud, and still competed for.
- Yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol — the National Eisteddfod
The great festival of Welsh poetry and song, where the harp and cerdd dant still compete for the chair.
- Eisteddfod yr Urdd — the Urdd National Eisteddfod
Europe's largest youth arts festival — triple harp, cerdd dant and folk among its competitions.
- Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod
A festival of the world's music and dance gathered each July in the Dee valley.
- Wales Harp Festival — Gŵyl Delynau Cymru
A harp festival and course at Galeri, Caernarfon, spanning the Welsh harp tradition.
- Sesiwn Fawr Dolgellau
A bilingual folk and world-music festival with twmpath dances and street sessions.
- Fishguard Folk Festival
A long-running, mostly-free folk festival on the Pembrokeshire coast, rich in sessions and workshops.
Players & scholars
The voices carrying the tradition — and those who trace it to its source.
- Cass Meurig
The foremost living player of the crwth, and author of the book that gave the instrument back its grammar.
- Robin Huw Bowen — Telynor Cymru
The master of the triple harp, who has carried the telyn deires to the world as few before him.
- Simon Chadwick — early Gaelic harp & bowed lyre
A scholar-performer with deep, careful pages on the bowed lyre's history and construction.
- Early Music Muse — Ian Pittaway
In-depth writing on medieval instruments, the crwth among them — good company for the curious.
Communities & forums
The gathering places — where players, makers, and the merely curious trade knowledge across the world.
- MIMF — the Musical Instrument Makers Forum
The finest gathering of makers online, generous with the hard-won knowledge of the bench.
- MIMF — building a Welsh harp
A maker's thread following a Welsh harp from timber to string.
- MIMF — building a bowed lyre / crwth
The quieter craft of the bowed lyre, worked through in detail.
- Harp Column — forums & marketplace
The largest gathering of harpers anywhere, wide enough to hold a corner for the Welsh instruments.
- Fiddle Hangout — the Welsh crwth thread
A long conversation among the bow-minded on the crwth's kinship with the fiddle.
- Welsh Triple Harp Society (Facebook)
The society's daily table — news, players, and instruments changing hands.
- Welsh Crwth (Facebook)
A small hearth for the crwth's few devoted followers.
- The Session
The great well of Celtic tunes and their discussion — music worth carrying to the harp.
- Mudcat Café
A long-running hearth of folk lore, with Welsh and harp threads running quietly through it.
The crwth's kin — bowed lyres & early music
The crwth's cousins across Europe, and the societies that keep the historical string traditions.
- Self-made Bowed Lyre — Tagelharpa, Jouhikko & others (Facebook)
A lively fellowship of the bowed lyre in all its Nordic forms — near kin to the crwth.
- Tagelharpa och andra stråkharpor (Facebook)
A Scandinavian circle for the bowed lyre and its makers.
- FOTMD — the bowed-lyre forum
Adventures with jouhikko and tagelharpa, welcoming to the crwth-curious.
- Rauno Nieminen — jouhikko master maker
The modern master of the jouhikko, the crwth's Finnish cousin, who studies instruments by building them.
- Eric Sahlström Institutet
Sweden's national centre for folk music and the making of its keyed and bowed strings.
- Nordic Harp Meeting
An annual gathering of Nordic and folk harpists, makers among them.
- Historical Harp Society
The society of early and period harps, and their scholarship.
- Historical Harp Society of Ireland
The early Gaelic wire-strung harp — the closest living Celtic parallel to the crwth revival.
- The Galpin Society
The scholars of organology, tracing historical instruments through their forms and voices.
- American Musical Instrument Society
A society of makers, curators and historians of instruments.
- The Lute Society
A model community for a period plucked-string tradition, and its makers.
- Heritage Crafts — lute making
The register of traditional making crafts — the frame within which bespoke instrument-making belongs.
Makers, plans & the craft
The craft itself — plans to build by, and kindred makers who share this field.
- Michael J King — crwth & bowed-lyre plans
Measured plans and kits for those who would raise a crwth themselves.
- FoMRHI — Makers & Researchers of Historical Instruments
A quarterly fellowship where the crwth's tunings and string-lengths are set down on paper.
- An 11th-century round crwth build (nogy.net)
One maker's account of building the earliest, rounded form of the crwth.
- Guild of American Luthiers
A long-standing society advancing the making and repair of stringed instruments.
- Teifi Harps
A long-standing Welsh harp workshop near Cardigan — good company in the same craft.
- Cambrian Harps
Makers of Welsh harps, kindred hands at the same bench-work of timber and string.
The wider harp world
Harp societies, festivals and congresses beyond Wales, where a maker finds a wider room.
- The Clarsach Society (Scotland)
The Scottish society of the clarsach, and organiser of the Edinburgh festival.
- Edinburgh International Harp Festival
A major annual gathering of harpists and makers.
- World Harp Congress
The premier worldwide harp event, held every three years (Cardiff, 2022).
- World Harp Congress — national harp associations
An index of harp associations around the world, and a map of the harp community.
- American Harp Society
The principal harp membership organisation in the United States.
- Scottish Harp Society of America
For the Scottish and Celtic harp traditions in North America.
- United Kingdom Harp Association
The national UK harp association.
- Rencontres Internationales de Harpes Celtiques (Dinan)
The world's largest Celtic-harp festival, drawing players from every Celtic nation to Brittany each July.
- Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann
The great Irish traditional-music organisation, and a cross-Celtic neighbour.
Welsh around the world
Y Cymry ar wasgar — the Welsh diaspora, from America to Patagonia, who carry the culture far from home.
- GlobalWelsh
A global community connecting Wales and the Welsh across fifty countries and more.
- Parallel.cymru — Welsh societies worldwide
A maintained directory of Welsh societies the world over — the best single index.
- Wales.com — Welsh communities around the world
The Welsh Government's map of Welsh cultural communities across the globe.
- AmeriCymru
A large online network of the Welsh in America.
- Welsh North American Association — Festival of Wales
The largest Welsh body in North America, host of the annual North American Festival of Wales.
- Welsh Society of Philadelphia
The oldest Welsh society in the United States, founded in 1798.
- Cymdeithas Madog — Welsh Studies in North America
Welsh-language courses across North America, and a culturally engaged audience.
- Vancouver Welsh Society
Home of Cambrian Hall, thought the only dedicated Welsh hall in North America.
- St. David's Society of Toronto
A long-established Welsh society in central Canada.
- Ontario Welsh Festival
An annual gathering of Welsh societies across Ontario, with Gymanfa Ganu and concerts.
- Sydney Welsh Society
A Welsh cultural society in New South Wales.
- Melbourne Welsh Church
A historic Welsh cultural and choral hub in Victoria.
- Auckland Welsh Club
The principal Welsh community organisation in northern New Zealand.
- Cymdeithas Cymru-Ariannin — Wales-Argentina Society
The society strengthening the links between Wales and Patagonia's Y Wladfa.
- Eisteddfod del Chubut
The Welsh-Patagonian eisteddfod held each October in Trelew.
Heritage, archives & learning more
The deep sources — where the instruments, manuscripts and memory of the tradition are kept.
- Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru — the National Library of Wales
The Welsh Music Archive, where the written memory of harp and song is kept safe.
- Amgueddfa Cymru — St Fagans National Museum of History
Home to old Welsh instruments — crwth and pibgorn among them — that you may stand before.
- Cerdd dant — the craft of the string
An introduction to the Welsh art of singing over the harp — the setting these instruments belong to.
- Wikipedia — the crwth
A serviceable first account of the bowed lyre, and a place to begin.
- Wikipedia — the triple harp
The story of the three-rowed harp in brief, before the fuller sources take over.