Hey Rob, Waldzither, as far as I know, is one of the names, and maybe the catch-all name, for the German version of the Portuguese guitar, so the descendent of the 18th-c cittern in that part of the world. A very nice instrument.
Can you give us more info on the conference? Sounds great. Doc To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
