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 eisteddfod. 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 a Welsh voice, and the Welsh scattered across the world. Wander here as you would a country of gwŷr wrth gerdd — those skilled in the craft. 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.
- NINNAU — the North American Welsh newspaper
The main Welsh community paper of North America.
- 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.