Joel Andrews

Born in 1928, Joel Andrews entered a musical household immediately, since his father performed as an entertainer whose worldwide tours introduced the boy to numerous distant cultures. At age six his parents separated; his mother then wed a strict stepfather whose vast classical collection nevertheless filled the home with recordings. Seeking comfort, Andrews turned to his maternal grandmother, who purchased him a concert-size harp on his thirteenth birthday.

During the 1930s and 1940s, repeated stays at his uncle’s Pismo Beach, California, commune deepened Andrews’s spiritual outlook while he mingled with artists, poets, dancers, and teachers such as Krishnamurti, Isadora Duncan, and Alan Watts. There he absorbed astrology, psychic perception, and metaphysics, even as swing music also captivated him. While completing a bachelor’s degree in theory and composition at the University of Santa Barbara, he organized both a jazz ensemble and an experimental group “dedicated to healing through free improvisation.” His formal harp studies advanced through master classes with the renowned harpist Carlos Salzedo.

At twenty-one he enlisted in the Air Force—thereby sidestepping the draft—to perform with its concert band and symphony. Still in uniform at twenty-three, Andrews underwent a sequence of visions, “illumination, a touch of cosmic consciousness,” and remained in a state of bliss for an entire month; thereafter he pursued ongoing inquiry into cosmic consciousness and additional planes of existence.

Following his discharge he continued harp training at the Cleveland Institute of Music and, at twenty-seven, began teaching as head of the harp department at the University of Texas. He reached San Francisco in 1960 and immersed himself in its vibrant beatnik milieu, the city’s cultural abundance, and the spiritual resources of the Monterey region. In 1966 he studied with music healer Kay Ortman. By 1968 Andrews had resumed a classical concert career that encompassed a musician-in-residence position at North Carolina State and numerous solo recitals. He joined the improvisational jazz collective the Paul Winter Consort as harpist in 1972, yet the next year he stepped away from institutional music to practice metaphysical healing. He conducts this work through scientific collaboration—having partnered with researcher Marcel Vogel—alongside symbolic methods and contact with higher sources.

Andrews continues to perform on his concert harp, though he has long specialized in creating individualized healing improvisations and has produced more than 2,500 therapeutic recordings. Many of his commercially released albums serve meditation, natural childbirth, massage, healing, and movement practices. A pivotal early release, The Violet Flame from 1976, was “co-created with the Master Saint Germaine.” He operates his own imprint, Golden Harp, and resides in Mendocino, California, alongside his wife Serafina, a skilled harpist, dancer, and channel for a circle of angels. He regularly travels through Europe to conduct seminars, concerts, and attunement sessions.

Andrews began recording for The Relaxation Company in 1993 with Walking on Air; his 1996 album Seven Wheels of Light employs the harp to align the listener’s energy centers. In 1989 he authored “A Harp Full of Stars: The Journey of a Music Healer,” issued by Golden Harp Press.