Harp Spectrum

Author Biography

Although not a musician herself, Moira Bonnington loves music and began to research her family history when she found out her great, great grandfather, Henry David Haarnack, was a harp maker.

"I thought it sounded terribly romantic.The combination of the fact he had an very unusual surname and an unusual trade would , I thought, make it easy to trace. In the course of my detective work, I have found out great deal about the development of the pedal harp and musical instrument makers in 19th century London. discovered two cousins I never knew I had , six Haarnack harps and made lots of new friends on the Internet"

In her continuing research, Ms. Bonnington is hoping to find some more evidence of the earliest Haarnack and where he came from in Europe. She would also like to hear someone playing "The Last Rose of Summer" on one of her ancestor's harps, just as that day in 1926 when her great, great grandfather played to the newspaper reporters.

Ms. Bonnington took an honours degree in Russian at Sussex University in the late sixties. She is married with three children and currently teaches English as a Foreign Language at the Rikkyo Japanese School in England .Just over a year ago she finished translating a book about the history of the horse and the origins of the Akhal Teke breed.

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