In ancient China, the term konghou came to refer to three different musical instruments: a zither and two different types of harp. Today, konghou usually refers the modern konghou concert harp, which was invented in the last century. Shu-konghou refers to an extinct vertical angular harp, and feng shou konghou to an extinct arched harp.

Tomoko Sugawara is a harpist from Tokyo, Japan, who grew up playing classical and Irish harp before learning to play the kugo or angular harp. With Swedish professor Bo Lawergren, whom she met at a kugo museum exhibit in Nara, Japan, she engineered a fully working model of a kugo and hired American harp builder Bill Campbell to construct it.

Tomoko Sugawara (Kugo Harp) was born in Tokyo, Japan, and began playing the Irish harp at age twelve. She took up the concert harp at sixteen, and it was her main instrument when she graduated from Tokyo University of Fine Arts. Since 1991 …

Mar 16, 2010 · In 1991 she took up the Kugo, the Japanese version of the very ancient Angular Harp, which flourished from 1900 B.C. to 1700 A.D. She is now the leading kugo player and is about to release the first CD with it as a solo instrument, Along the Silk Road.

The angular harp appeared around 1850 B.C. and supplanted the bowed harp in its homeland of Mesopotamia and Iran. Over time, the angular harp became the most widespread type of harp in the Middle East and later throughout Asia, except for India.

Tomoko Sugawara studied the harp at Tokyo University of the Arts and cultural history at Seijo University, Tokyo. She has been playing the kugo since 1991, and has conducted research and activities in New York, funded by Asian Cultural Council grants in 2007–8, 2014, and 2018–19.

In 1991, she began playing the ancient Asian harp, Kugo. Since 2007 she has been conducting research & activities in New York under an Asian Cultural Council grant. In 2013 she founded Eurasia Consort ensemble.

Born in Tokyo, Tomoko Sugawara began to play the Irish harp at age twelve and the grand harp at sixteen. A graduate of Tokyo University with a degree in Fine Arts, Sugawara first took up the kugo in 1994.

Tomoko Sugawara studied harp at Tokyo University of the Arts and cultural history at Seijo University. Since 1991 she started the kugo, and research & activities in New York by Asian Cultural Council grant in 2007. In 2013 she founded Eurasia Consort. In 2018 and 2019, she visited at Shanghai Conservatory of Music as a visiting researcher.

Tomoko enjoys playing harps from East & West, including the Modern harp, Renaissance harp, and Baroque triple harp and Asian harp kugo. She has almost 40 years teaching the harp experience. Click here to read testimonials from Tomoko's students.