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Starts: 14:30
Ends: 16:00
Sunday 21 April in Nigg Hall 2.30pm - 4.00pm followed by refreshments
Pictish Harps, Historical harp specialist Bill Taylor will present an overview of music-making in early Medieval Scotland, based on iconographic evidence found on Pictish stones. The harp depicted on the Nigg cross-slab is a particularly fine example. Images of harps, often connected to larger story cycles of King David, appear on about a dozen stones, and new theories are emerging which explore the origins, distribution and construction of such instruments. Bill will cite the appearance of harps on different stones, discuss the context of the imagery, and also play reconstructions of harps, including examples strung with wire, gut and horsehair. On this occasion visitors will have the chance to see the harp modelled on the Nigg harp, exhibited here by courtesy of the Board of Directors of Groam House Museum. For all ages, including children over 8 years.