Lyon & Healy

Lyon & Healy Harps, Inc. - An American musical instrument manufacturer based in Chicago, Illinois, and a subsidiary of Salvi Harps. Today, best known for its concert harp, the company's headquarters and manufacturing complex in Chicago contains an exhibition hall and a concert hall. George W. Lyon and Patrick J. Healy founded the company in 1864 as a music store. By the end of the 19th century, they had produced a wide range of musical instruments - including not only harps, but also guitars, mandolins, banjos, ukuleles and various brass and percussion instruments. Today, Lyon and Healy's harps are widely performed by professional musicians, as they are one of the few producers of orchestral harps that are known as concert harps or pedal harps. Lyon & Healy also produces smaller folk harps or lever harps (based on traditional Irish and Scottish instruments) that use levers to change the string's height instead of pedals. In the 1980s, Lyon & Healy also began to produce electro-acoustic harps, and then solid-state electric harps.