Lyre Rentals Program

By Julia Elliott (for the Lyre Rentals Committee)

The Lyre Rentals Program helps to promote LANA’s mission of encouraging and supporting the work of the lyre in North America.  By making lyres available to rent to new or experienced lyre players, lyrists are offered the possibility of “test-driving” an instrument before investing in a purchase.   The Lyre Rentals Committee often acts as the first contact that many musicians have with LANA.  We love responding to queries like:  “I am new to the lyre and don’t know where to start.  Can you help me?”  By equipping new lyrists with an instrument and helping to connect them with a teacher in their area, we hope to facilitate a healthy and joyful relationship with the lyre that will last a lifetime.
 
In 2017, LANA owned a total of nine rental lyres.  During the course of the year, we added to our inventory a beautiful Derscheid Legacy lyre (made for us by Alan Thewless) and a small Derscheid soprano lyre, purchased from Gundolf Kuehn in Germany.  As of this report, three of our small soprano lyres are available for rent, five are currently rented, one was sold, and one is under contract through our “rent-to-buy” program.  For lyres that are available for purchase through our “rent-to-buy” program, we encourage renters to make a decision regarding such an investment after a year of renting.
 
The following are the rental lyres LANA had available in 2017 and their current status:
                                                                                   
Choroi solo soprano lyre (39 strings)               Rented
Gartner solo soprano lyre (39 strings)              Sold
Choroi soprano lyre (35 strings)                        Rented
Gartner soprano lyre (35 strings)                       Rented
Derscheid Legacy large sop. lyre (37 Strings)  Rented
Derscheid small soprano lyre (27 strings)        Rented
Gartner small soprano lyre (27 strings)            Available
Rose soprano lyre (27 strings)                            Available
Gartner small soprano lyre (27 strings)            Available
 
As we look toward 2018, it is the hope of the Lyre Rentals Committee to purchase more lyres to make available to LANA members.  We would like to support the Derscheid Legacy initiative by ordering more of these instruments from Alan Thewless, offering them for rent or sale in the future.  We also hope to purchase and rent more lower range instruments (especially altos) as we continue to receive requests for them.  It is the Committee’s greatest wish to make the lyre available and affordable to all who are drawn to it through our Lyre Rentals Program.