As part of our series of ‘Celebrating Excellence’ in assemblies, where we invite professional people to demonstrate their craft, we were honoured to meet Francisco Yglesia yesterday.

Franscisco is a world-renowned master of the Paraguayan harp, who has played in major venues worldwide, has performed for royalty, and who was featured as one of Sir David Attenborough’s eight choices of music on Desert Island Discs.

And he came to perform for us in assembly!

It was an absolute privilege to watch, as Francisco entranced the young people with his stories of the instrument and the tunes he played.  He explained how his tunes reflect daily life in his homeland, and often feature onamatopoeia in their interpretation.  One song featured two bears, and another traditional song – entitled El Tren Lechero – imitated the sound of the ‘milk train’.

Francisco’s granddaughter Ella performed in front of a big audience for the first time – joining him for the last number in a wonderful duet, singing Flowers by Miley Cyrus.

Many thanks to Francisco and to his family for helping make this happen.  Please see the pictures and video below.

Our next star guest will be the artist Sarah Pye.