Dear Harp Centre Australia member,
As some of you may have heard already, Lyon & Healy / Salvi have decided to change their dealership structure worldwide.
They have decided to support one distributor in each country as their preferred option, and any other dealers must now order harps through the one Australian distributor.
Harp Centre Australia was not chosen to be the Australian distributor, and there was no reason given to us for this decision. We were given only two weeks notice of the changes. We are very disappointed at the decision and the abrupt way this was communicated to us, especially after 15 years of building L&H and Salvi sales in Australia.
The financial arrangement that we have had until now with Lyon & Healy allowed us to subsidise some of the shipping costs for customers and provide a professional level of support and advice. With the new arrangement we will not be able to afford to offer the quality of service we would like, and so HCA has chosen not to continue selling Lyon & Healy or Salvi harps.
Unfortunately, with only one dealer in Australia, and a lack of competition, we are concerned that prices may go up for L&H / Salvi harps here in the future. We will therefore be looking at other options to supply and support the Australian harp community with pedal harps of good quality and with reasonable shipping prices.
We will be working hard to identify a manufacturer and dealer that we feel we are able to recommend to our members.
HCA will continue to support the harp community in Australia through:
• harps, including promoting the high quality lever harps made in Australia,
• teaching and education programs,
• sales of harp related items such as strings,
• building an archive of video footage to document prominent harpists,
• local events throughout Australia.
If you have any concerns of queries don’t hesitate to contact us, or join the conversation on the Harp Centre Australia Facebook page.
We would like to thank you for your continuing support.
Sincerely, your Harp Centre Australia Board –
Alice Giles
Liena Lacey
Arnan Wiesel
Michael Carlin