Recognized worldwide as a leading pioneer in the field of historical harps, Cheryl Ann Fulton has had internationally successful performing, recording, teaching and scholarly research career since 1986. She is America’s premier performer of historical harps, and one of the few harpists in the world to play triple harp, medieval harp and contemporary lever harps. Her solo performance for the 2002 World Harp Congress in Geneva affirmed her rank as one of the world’s leading harpists. Known for her exceptional artistry, in the last decade she has become a renowned and highly sought after teacher of her masterful and expressive technique. Her solo recital performed at the John F. Kennedy Center featured five historical harps on one program of which the Washington Post said, "Fulton drew from all of them a serene and delicate sound.... remarkable instruments which Fulton played with total skill and reverent affection."
A versatile recording artist, she can be heard on over thirty albums and soundtracks broadly ranging from medieval, baroque, orchestral, and contemporary music to Celtic music and film scores, on major labels including PolyGram, Deutche Harmonia Mundi, Koch International Classics, Nonesuch, Erato, Dorian, Gourd Music, and others. Her first solo album, The Airs of Wales, brought her recognition and acclaim as a "genuine virtuosa of her instrument." A composer as well as performer, her original compositions from her second solo album, The Once & Future Harp, have been featured on National Public Radio.
A leading scholar in the field of historical harps, Dr. Fulton, a Fulbright scholar, is a contributing scholar for the new edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and has written a chapter for A Performers Guide to Medieval Music (IU Press, 2000). She was awarded the Burton E. Adams Prize for Academic Research for her doctoral thesis on the history of the triple harp. She earned a BS degree in pedal harp, and an MM and DM in early music/historical harp from the School of Music of Indiana University, Bloomington. During her graduate work she was a devoted student of Thomas Binkley, and served as Associate Instructor of Historical Harp. In 1987 she received a Fulbright award for research and performance in Lisbon, Portugal and while there served as principal harpist for Portugal's finest orchestra, the Orchestre Gulbenkian. She is the founding President of the Historical Harp Society which celebrated it’s 20th anniversary in August 2003.
Cheryl Ann Fulton is the producer and director, as well as a featured performer along with her Celtic harp group
The White Horse Harpers, Jerry O’Sullivan, Shay Black and Liz Carol on the 2001 recording Christmas in an Irish Castle. A founding member of Ensemble Alcatraz, she has worked with many professional ensembles including Anonymous 4, Sequentia, Les Idees Heureuses, American Bach Soloists, The Boston Camerata, and Chanticleer. With her friend Diana Stork, she performs in the duo Twin Harps. She founded and directs the medieval harp choir Angelorum. Cheryl Ann lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and loves riding her beautiful Arabian horse Fazon, and enjoying time with her two dogs.
Dr. Fulton can be reached at: