Tara Jaff is a Kurdish musician who has been exposed to many influences.Over the years she experimented with different string instruments, but it was her fascination with the ancient harps of Sumeria and Mesopotamia, dating as far back as 3000BC, that led her to the contemporary Celtic harp.

Tara has embraced this instrument and has introduced it to Kurdish music, and in particular to folk songs in the Hawrami dialect. She has developed an innovative style to adapt to the various musical rhythms and modes of the region, bringing a contemporary expression to an ancient form of song and music.

Tara has been living in the United Kingdom since 1976 and has performed widely in concerts, festivals, conferences and galleries mainly as a solo artist and has featured regularly in radio and television in several countries. Her occasional collaborations have been with a wide range of artists; musicians, singers, poets, storytellers and painters.

She is also involved in outreach work where she brings her harp to hospitals to play soothing music to the patients and staff. This project is organised by Vital Arts and Spitafields Music on Call. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.