Ever heard of a hurdy-gurdy? You may know it by many other names – vielle a roue, zanfona, or organistrum – as there is a version of this medieval instrument in ...

The hurdy-gurdy is one of Europe's oldest musical instruments. A kind of mechanical violin, it uses keys and a crank, along with melody and drone strings. Some call it the medieval synthesizer, and a ...

A mechanical string instrument from the Middle Ages that can still evoke chills today... With a few turns on a hurdy-gurdy’s hand crank, a rosined wheel sweeps against the instrument’s three main ...

Twenty-seven years ago, in search of a hurdy-gurdy master, Donald Heller wandered into a music shop in Budapest. There, he saw a beautiful maiden, an ancient-looking stringed instrument in her lap, ...

LEEDS, Alabama – It was Saturday night at the Leeds Theatre and Arts Center and a performance by one of Alabama's most noted storytellers, Dolores Hydock, was about to take place. As Hydock got ready ...

Would you love to launch your own Middle Ages band but can’t find a lutist let alone a good hurdy gurdy player? First off, congratulations on knowing what a hurdy gurdy is (man). But second and more ...

Seattle’s Early Music Guild opened its prestigious International Series over the weekend with the brilliant young Montreal-based group, Ensemble La Rota. The four-member band of medieval specialists ...

In 1971, if you’d have told British guitar star Ritchie Blackmore that in 40 years he’d be playing Renaissance fair music on a hurdy-gurdy in castle courtyards throughout Europe he would never have ...

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The hurdy-gurdy is the duck-billed platypus of instruments. It has strings but you don’t pick or strum them. It ...