Exterior of the Lyon & Healy building in Chicago, Illinois | Chicago, Illinois

Lyon & Healy is an American manufacturer of harps founded in 1864 in Chicago by George W. Lyon and Patrick J. Healy.

Lyon & Healy's headquarters and manufacturing facility, still in Chicago, contains a showroom and concert hall.

Lyon & Healy harps are widely-played by professional musicians since they make one of the few harps for orchestral use — which are known as " concert harps " or " pedal harps ".

In addition, Lyon & Healy makes smaller versions of the harp, which are known as folk harps ( based on traditional Irish instruments ) or lever harps ( which use levers to change the pitch of the string rather than pedals ).

In the 1980s, Lyon & Healy also began to manufacture electroacoustic harps as well as solid body electric harps in later years.

The full history of Lyon & Healy is complicated by the destruction of its building and loss of company records during four fires including the Great Chicago Fire ( 1871 ).

Letters and trade catalogs containing information about this company are not forthcoming as to exact dates, when Lyon & Healy began manufacturing instruments.

An article found within the pages of the Musical Courier states that Lyon & Healy began manufacturing instruments in 1885.

Clearly, Lyon & Healy was making plucked string instruments in the 1880s, with Washburn ( guitars, mandolins, banjos, and zithers ) being their premier line.

Lyon & Healy also made various percussion instruments.

Later, Lyon & Healy began manufacturing brass instruments, possibly as early as the 1890s.

Lyon & Healy also repaired instruments and evidently offered engraving services.

Complicating matters still further, Lyon & Healy engraved instruments, that it retailed but did not actually manufacture.

Lyon & Healy evidently began manufacturing these instruments around 1876 in its factories in Chicago and nearby cities.

Lyon & Healy built their first harp in 1889.

In 1890, Lyon & Healy introduced the Style 23 Harp, still one of the most popular and recognizable designs in the world.

Lyon & Healy produces one of the most ornate and elaborate harps in the world, the Louis XV, which includes carvings of leaves, flowers, scrolls, and shells along its neck and kneeblock, as well the soundboard edges.

By the 1900s, Lyon & Healy was one of the largest music publishers in the world, and sold new and antique violins, pianos, and other instruments.

However, In 1920s, Lyon & Healy sold its brass musical instrument manufacturing branch ( see " New Langwill Index ").

In 1928, Lyon & Healy introduced one of the most unusual harps ever designed for mass production, the " Salzedo Model ", designed in collaboration with the harpist Carlos Salzedo.

In the 1960s, Lyon & Healy introduced a smaller lever harp, the " Troubadour ", a 36-string harp that is designed for young beginners, who have smaller hands and may find playing a concert harp difficult, as well as hobbyists.

In the late 1970s, Lyon & Healy was purchased by Steinway & Sons ( then owned by CBS ), and consequently closed their retail stores in the Chicago area, that had been selling sheet music and musical instruments, and their education departments — to focus on the harp division.

Amplified ( electro-acoustic ) hollow body and solid body electric lever harps are produced by many harpmakers at this time, such as Lyon and Healy Harps out of Chicago, Salvi Harps out of Italy, and Camac Harps out of France.

The company was founded in 1864 by George W. Lyon and Patrick J. Healy, who moved from Boston to start a sheet music shop for music publisher Oliver Ditson.

George W. Lyon patented his cottage upright in 1878 and it was sold under the Lyon and Healy name.

Lyon retired in 1889 ; Healy died in 1905.

By 1985, Lyon & Healy also made folk harps, also known as " Irish harps ", which are even smaller than the Troubadour.

This has allowed Lyon & Healy to mass-produce harps, that can be customized with special order features — such as carved columns, gold-leaf work, hand-painted sound boards, and other artistic inlays.

Lyon and Healy primarily manufactures four types of harps.

Squier Company ), as well as Electro-Music Inc. ( Leslie speakers ), Rogers drums, Steinway pianos, Gemeinhardt flutes, Lyon & Healy harps, Rodgers ( institutional ) organs, and Gulbransen home organs.

* Lyon & Healy, US company which manufactured harps

The Lyon and Healy electric and electro-acoustic harps are built first on the quality of the traditional Lyon and Healy harp.

* Camille and Kennerly Kitt, electric harp duo, The Harp Twins, perform and arrange rock / pop on Lyon and Healy Silhouette solid body electric harps.

The jotted Lyon: This mad world dept.: Khrush and the Kremlin crowd are confident all right.

There are a few texts from the Cathars themselves which were preserved by their opponents ( the Rituel Cathare de Lyon ) which give a glimpse of the inner workings of their faith, but these still leave many questions unanswered.

Metro and tramway services are not thought of as trains and usually follow road traffic in driving on the right ( except the Lyon Metro ).

The Viscount and Viscountess Alexander of Tunis are greeted by Prime Minister of Canada William Lyon Mackenzie King | Mackenzie King upon the viceregal couple's arrival in Ottawa, 12 April 1946

* 1850 – The Bloody Island Massacre takes place in Lake County, California, in which a large number of Pomo Indians in Lake County are slaughtered by a regiment of the United States Cavalry, led by Nathaniel Lyon.

A manuscript normally known as the Orus Apollo also exists in the Lyon municipal library, where upwards of 2, 000 original documents relating to Nostradamus are stored under the aegis of Michel Chomarat.

Latin versions of both had recently been published in Lyon, and extracts from both are paraphrased ( in the second case almost literally ) in his first two verses, the first of which is appended to this article.

Culturally, as the Sorbonne and Louvre are both establishing extensions in the UAE, a plan is in the works to recreate a miniature Lyon city in Dubai complete with public squares, restaurants and museums.

Most notable Peace Cup football clubs are Aston Villa, Juventus, Lyon, Inter Milan, etc.

A triglot containing the Peshitta appeared in 1569, of which some copies are in existence, bearing the date Lyon, 1571.

* Forty-seven Christians are martyred in Lyon ( Saint Blandina and Pothinus, bishop of Lyon, are among them ).

The Lyon hypothesis states that in cells with multiple X chromosomes, all but one are inactivated during mammalian embryogenesis.

Important communities are located in Paris, Strasbourg and Lyon.

The Fréjus Road Tunnel and Fréjus Rail Tunnel between Modane and Susa are important transportation arteries between France ( Lyon, Grenoble ) and Italy ( Turin ).

According to the era, the region, or the performers, Guignol's original caustic satire has often been watered down to simple children's fare, and has even been used to parody grand opera, but his original spirit still survives in his hometown of Lyon, where both traditional and original contemporary performances are an integral part of local culture.