If you have visited www.camac-harps.com, you probably know that our website has a harp and cello arrangement of Fauré’s Après une rêve as its welcoming music. Much as we love this piece, it has been on the site for over three years, and it’s time for a change!
We would like to invite you to send us your own recordings. Each selected recording will then be featured on our site for one month, with links to the performer’s own site (or preferred publicity details). Every time the music changes, it will be announced on www.harpblog.info, together with an extensive presentation about the music and the artist performing it. We will also create a ‘Camac voices’ page, where recordings past and present are collected together, and where information, links and publicity can remain more permanently.
THE CHALLENGE IS: the music must be between fifty and sixty seconds long, and we would particularly welcome music you have created yourselves!
Here are the other conditions:
Music submitted should be free of rights, and come with a declaration giving us permission for us to broadcast it online.
Music can be any style and on any type of harp. From early to electric, folk to Latin: we will even enjoy listening to music that is not played on a Camac!
Music can be for solo harp, or any ensemble / group featuring harp as the main instrument.
Please submit recordings in whichever of these two ways is most convenient for you: via email to harpblog@camac-harps.com, or on a CD to the address below.
We are open to all ideas! We hope very much you will apply, and have fun doing so.
Camac Harps La Richerais BP 15 44850 Mouzeil France
While we were at the Ksenia Erdely International Competition, we met Carolyn Lund. Carolyn not only reached the semifinals of a very demanding competition, but did so while teaching fifty harp students a day. Yes, a day, in six group classes, with additional tuition in the evenings as well. That's a pretty amazing achievement, and what Carolyn does is also a pretty amazing job. Hear some of the results now, on camac-harps.com!
Carolyn is the artistic director of the Urban Youth Harp Ensemble, which is a harp education programme for disadvantaged youth in Atlanta, Georgia USA. It was established twelve years ago by Elisabeth Remy Johnson, principal harpist of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and Roselyn Lewis, a longtime Atlanta public schools music teacher known for exposing students to opera and African drums. Carolyn was appointed artistic director when Elisabeth retired from the project, while Roselyn remains at the helm preparing the grant applications that have always been the programme's entire source of funding.
"I see fifty students every day, divided into six classes, plus after-school tuition", Carolyn explains. "They can opt for harp class instead of band or chorus class, and while it is not possible to give fifty individual lessons, the idea is that the daily classes help them to advance quickly. We have fifteen harps, because none of the students are in a position to have their own harps at home, so all practice is done at school.
The students learn to play the harp, but also to read music and develop their general musicianship. Of course, most of them will not go on to be professional harpists, although in fact the programme's first student, Mason Morton, is currently now doing his performance doctorate with Ann Hobson Pilot in Boston - and he has achieved this through scholarships all the way, no loans at all. But whether students want to pursue the harp long-term or not, we have an honours group made up of the best students, and they go out and do professional gigs."
Mason Morton (at the harp) comes back to visit the current class
Deborah Henson-Conant needs little introduction to the harp world. She was one of Harpblog's first ever interview subjects, and we are very proud of how we have been able to work with her, developing our range of electric lever harps. Our DHC Blue Light, named after her, is the most recent of these (you can read Deborah's own account of her association with Camac here).
But that's enough about us. Deborah is currently playing an amazing tour, the like of which has never happened to the harp world before. Deborah is...on tour with the legendary rock guitarist Steve Vai. In the rock world, Vai is known both as one of the ultimate 'shredders' (think 'lots of notes') and as one of the most sophisticated rock musicians. He’s also unique in being a rock starinstrumentalist. In her blog "How to Enjoy a Steve Vai show if you’re not a Rock Music Fan," Deborah described him thus: "Think Pagannini in the 21st century with an electric guitar and you start to get the picture."
There is not much harp (yet) in rock, although there are some noble exceptions, like Lena Woods, another artist we love. It is music Deborah always wanted to explore: "I’ve always believed the harp has an important voice for rock music - and I’ve explored that voice, using distortion and altered harp techniques, in my one-woman shows and in the music I write for harp solo and orchestra. but I don’t come from a rock background and to find that voice for the harp I’ve always known I’d need to go into the belly of the beast, as it were – to take the harp right inside rock. Though I had no idea how I’d do that."
"About a year ago I got an email with the subject-header 'Steve Vai here.' It showed up in my inbox along with a moving invitation from the heir to a Saudi fortune, and the exciting results of a lottery in which I’d won over a million dollars."...Deborah gives an entertaining account of how she met Steve Vai in her extensive blog about the tour, "the rock harp diaries".
Check out Deborah's solo at 1'39!
I'll never forget the time I went to a shared concert by the conservatoire in question's classical and jazz departments. After a while, the classical professor leading the project got up and said to one of the jazz students "so, how did you cope, working with such complicated music for the first time?". It takes just as long to become a good jazz musician as it does to become a good classical one, and the same is true of rock. Moreover, Deborah isn't working with a normal rock musician. She's working with one of the most brilliant virtuosi that genre has ever seen.
Deborah therefore undertook a huge amount of preparation. From taking a twelve-week online course in Steve Vai's guitar techniques to transforming her lever technique to accomodate super-fast changes (and using a whammy pedal to get through some chromatic shifts); from coming up with memorisation tricks to buying an iPad, you can read all about it in her diaries. Deborah's track now playing on camac-harps.com is from this preparatory period, as she was experimenting with a wah wah pedal.
The tour is called The Story of Light
Reading Deborah's blog, I've realised that one of the best things about blogging in general is that it happens in real time. The rock harp diaries is not a PR exercise presenting the final triumphant results: it's a real behind-the-scenes, work-in-progress account of Deborah, herself already a world-famous harpist who was signed to a jazz label in the 90s, and who then received a Grammy Nomination for her classical crossover work with symphony in the last decade, now plunging into completely new musical territory, and basically starting over from scratch. That makes it even more exciting to read, for we don't know the outcome. Nor does Deborah know, and the honesty with which she chronicles her adventures is courageous and hugely encouraging to read. You see, it's not just you that sometimes has a hard time in the practice room. Everyone, including the biggest stars, knows how you feel.
"I keep wishing my jazz-intensive students could see me experiencing this kind of shell-shocked disconnect, because it’s exactly what I see them experience when they first begin studying with me – a sense of getting nowhere, flailing, demoralized, idiocy – that sense of “My God! Did I ever actually think I was a functioning musician???”
All of which I am experiencing.
When I see my students experiencing it, I know it’s just their brain shifting from an old way of knowing music to a new way, and that the deep sense of disorientation and uncoordination is part of making that shift. I know that the things that seem obvious to me, are often completely invisible to them until the structures finally become clear in their minds.
Until then, it’s like trying to build a box out of fog."
As the tour draws nearer, you read about the final rehearsals, find out what's most essential to take on a tour bus, and celebrate at least two personal victories for Deborah - one, finding a real ladies' lavatory, and two, the box emerging out of the fog. As the show progresses, Deborah's role in it is even growing - now with her own solo, and duets with the bass player and guitarist.
"WEEPING CHINA DOLL is one of the most challenging pieces from Steve’s new album, The Story of Light. Simply to remember the lever changes on this piece I took a workshop in memorization (no joke!).
The piece is epic and cinematic, and my part is very much like an orchestral harp part: broad sweeps, coloristic, with sounds that range from bell-like harp arpeggios to sounds like a Koto.
To execute some of the harmonic changes in this piece I use a Whammy pedal to shift my whole instrument down a half-step (to make that shift ‘by hand’ on my lever-harp you’d need to change 32-levers). So I worked like crazy on this piece with my coach, Marta Cook, and when we rehearsed it today, I poured all of that into it.
And when we were done, Steve put his guitar down, walked across the stage and hugged me.
The Camac team has so been doing Russia this week (imagine a topical, indeed witty banner change to Арфавлог, a bit like the Google logo at Christmas). But Russia or no Russia, today is still July 1st, which means it’s time for a new Camac voice on ourhomepage. It is an extract from a very interesting new flute and harp CD, and it isn’t Russian at all. It is Spanish / Singaporean: performed by flautist Roberto Alvarez and harpist Katryna Tan, and also consisting entirely of new works by composers from these two countries. The result is a mellifluous disc that, for something so contemporary, is remarkably easy to listen to, but that nonetheless offers “serious” repertoire – never clichéd or cheesy. The album was launched in September 2011, attracting considerable attention from both the Spanish and Singaporean press. One blog wrote: "for the year’s most adventurous programming conceived in a concert, look no further", here.
Katryna is a wonderful champion of the harp in Singapore and Malaysia. Deservedly, she has been twice decorated: with the Young Artist’s Award 2005, a cultural medallion from the President of Singapore for artistic excellence, and last year, she was granted a prestigious Setiawan Tuanku Muhriz award from the King of Malaysia. This is a high-level prize given to individuals who have brought honour to the State, by excelling in their careers and respective fields.
As well as being an active performing artist with diverse ensembles – such as her duo with Roberto, and also the Isis Trio we heard at the last World Harp Congress in Vancouver – Katryna is a composer and arranger, and very busy teacher. Her student ensemble theRave Harpers massively impressed everyone when they came to perform at our fortieth anniversary celebrations in Ancenis. Not only had they managed to bring eighteen students aged between five and eighteen all the way from Singapore, they were fantastically prepared. They even performed their varied and attractive programmes entirely from memory.
Some of the Rave Harpers outside our factory in Mouzeil
Katryna is currently preparing for a concert celebrating her tenth year of work with the harp world in Singapore. This concert, 'Dance with an Angel', will take place on August 12th 2012, 7:30PM, at the Esplanade Recital Studio in Singapore. It is a great example of Katryna's imaginative approach to concert planning, with a programme of music themed around evoking a particular atmosphere.
We are also really looking forward to HarpFest, which Jakez and I are going to in November 2012. It is the fourth time Katryna has organised this highly successful festival (the third migrated over to Malaysia to involve the harp community there). 2012's festival will star the wonderful Cristina Braga with her "Harpa Bossa" programme, and feature a harp musical for the first time, with singing and acting as well as harp-playing. Jakez and technician Liza Jensen will give workshops, and there will be an exhibition. There will also be various performance showcases from not only talented youth of Singapore, but also talented young harpists of the South East Asia region.
Regarding Pluck!, the harp musical, Katryna explains: "the Rave Harpers are experienced in giving traditional concerts now, so I was looking for a new challenge for us all. The idea is to do something fun and different, and involve the audience. It's going to involve harpists from the age of five, to grown-up. When I first came back to Singapore after finishing my studies, there wasn't such a big harp community. But now there really is one, where students and professionals of all ages get together, put on events and collaborate - linking out to the international community, too. It is what I was dreaming of really, ten years back. It's also very important to me to do a lot of new music, particularly from this region, to create a good source of repertoire we can feel really belongs to us and reflects the culture of Singapore."
As you can see, Katryna is a wonderful example of an artist who builds up an entire community through their creative thinking and superbly professional organisation. She widens the horizons of her students and audiences alike, and reveals the harp to be valuable.
June’s Camac Voice is a clip from a wonderful transcription of Shostakovich’s Prelude and fugue no. 4. It has been recorded by Remy van Kesteren, and forms part of his debut CD, ‘Remy’.
It is not easy to pursue a top-flight performing career and run an exceptional annual festival, but Remy has pulled it off. From its beginnings in 2010, the Dutch Harp Festivalhas proved itself to be one of the best events in the harp world calendar; meanwhile, Remy has a busy concert schedule, including a unique harp/violin/saxophone ensemble. He even manages regularly to update a thoughtful, English-language blog, which you can read via his website.
All of Remy’s activities distinguish themselves through a magical elixir of fine, tasteful and charismatic musicianship, very good communication skills, exemplary professionalism, and powerful personal integrity. This combination sounds easier to take for granted than it is. But it is exceptional. If it weren’t, we would all be doing it.
The early harp specialist Véronique Musson-Gonneaud has just released a new album: “Pour un plaisir: Intabulations by Antonio de Cabezón and his contemporaries" (Brilliant Classics 94351). It’s an atmospheric window on the dignified music of the Renaissance Spanish court – Antonio de Cabezón, Juan de de Cabezón, Hernando de Cabezón, Francisco Fernández Palero, an original piece for the harp by Alonso Mudarra (ironically, his more-performed Fantasia is originally for vihuela), and two anonymous works, all played by Véronique on Renaissance double harp.
April 1st is the final day of the Dutch Harp Festival, a wonderful festival-competition that has been taking place in Utrecht all this week. I thought it would be nice to make April's Camac Voice an artist who is beginning today's programme in Utrecht - Anneleen Lenaerts. Anneleen will be giving a lunchtime recital featuring several works by Chopin and Liszt, from her recent recording of transcriptions of these two composers.
Anneleen herself needs little biographical introduction to most of you in the harp world. She has an impressive roll (I've just counted up fifteen major ones) of international prizes, starting at a very young age, and crowned with first prize in the Lily Laskine Competition (2005) at the age of eighteen. Still only twenty-three, at the end of 2010 she was appointed Principal Harp with the Vienna Philharmonic.
All that speaks for itself, so in today's presentation I want to focus on her Chopin and Liszt disc itself.
Transcriptions are a particularly thorny dilemna for harpists. On the one hand, nobody can pretend that our original repertoire is always the equal of that of the violin or piano. It can be frustrating to be a good musician who has ended up on the harp, because a good musician wants to play good music. Frequently, then, you turn to transcription to expand the repertoire available to you: it's a bigger topic for harpists than it is for many other instruments. The more transcriptions you play, the more you encounter what can be the dangerous side of the coin - comparisons with the works' original scoring.
You can play it safer by arranging relatively minor works that don’t otherwise attract much attention, like the Valses Poeticos by Granados. If you throw caution to the wind and attempt some of the greatest pieces of music the world has ever known, like Bach’s Chaconne or the Goldberg Variations, you have to be pretty sure you’re not going to end up hurtling down the cliff-face of musical hubris. Your technique has to be good enough to render any extra technical harp difficulties inaudible, and your artistry has to be up there with the music’s original recordings. It is a dangerous job, but there are artists who can do it.
Chopin and Liszt are both hailed as composers who belong, above all, to the piano. Liszt is perhaps the greatest technician the instrument has ever known, and Rubinstein described Chopin as the "soul of the piano". A harp disc that consists solely of works by these composers, especially including major works such as Chopin’s great Nocturne Op.48? That’s a tall order. You can almost hear the critics sharpening their knives as you read the press release.
In the case of Anneleen’s recording, the critics will have to use those knives for something else. This album is fantastic. This is not a disc of harp showpieces niftily rendered by a recent competition winner, this is - by any standards, piano or otherwise - a great performance of great music. The entire programme, so difficult on so many levels, sounds like the easiest, more natural thing in the world. This is, as we were reminded during recent masterclasses in Paris and London, the mark of an artist. It is the ability to handle such Herculean tasks, engage with grown-up emotions in the music, and yet communicate them with the simplicity and freedom of a child.
For March's Camac Voice, we're very grateful to Blue Serge records for authorising a clip from one of their newest releases - Nuance. Nuance, by Italian jazz harpist Marcella Carboni and well-known singer Elisabetta Antonini, is a blend of original compositions and standards, with the blue harp at its core. “We called the album "Nuance" because we wanted to explore the nuances of the voice / harp combination”, Marcella explains. “I wanted to show how brilliant and equally how dark a harp can sound, and how the ensemble is capable of strong contrasts too - very rhythmic, or etherally delicate. We were lucky enough to be able to record in a very good studio in Cavalicco, where we could do all the work on sound we wanted to. In our first track, “Choro pro Zé”, the sound is very spare and minimal; we used cloth to damp the harp strings in “From A Dream”, and “Tutu” (Miles Davis) and Elisabetta’s song “Circe” use live electronics. Thanks to loop stations and effects pedals, we were able to record everything live - that was really important to us.”
Like most jazz harpists, Marcella is classically-trained, but “I always listened to all kinds of music, and jazz was my favourite. I heard and was inspired in particular by the exceptional live performances I heard - Miles Davis or Dizzy Gillespie, for example, and of course all the major Italian jazz musicians. It was in 1998, in Perugia, that I met Park Stickney for the first time. I was so surprised that he could play jazz on the harp - he showed me that it was possible.
After meeting Park, I started to study jazz with various teachers, mostly pianists. At the same time, I started to play with other jazz musicians, which really motivated me to persevere. I also took courses and private lessons with Park in England, Germany and Switzerland. I then pursued postgraduate jazz studies at the Cagliari Conservatory of Music in Sardinia, with Australian pianist Peter Waters.
As part of all my jazz studies, I was a regular attendee of the Nuoro Jazz courses - the staff there have become my close friends, and they have played a vital role in my artistic development. Even when I was no longer a student, they continued to support me and always invited me to play with them in the courses’ concluding concerts. It was in Nuoro that I met Elisabetta Antonini; she was the vocal coach, together with Maria Pia De Vito.
February’s Camac Voice has been recorded by none other than the winner of November’s Cité des Arts competition: Maureen Thiébaut. It is the opening of the Sonata K208 by Scarlatti.
Maureen Thiébaut
Maureen Thiébaut began the harp in 1996. In 2005, she joined the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Paris (CRR), where she studied with Ghislaine Petit-Volta until 2009. Having received her Diplôme d'Etudes Musicales (DEM) with a "très bien" credit, she entered Isabelle Moretti's class at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris (CNSMDP). A propos - the CRR is one of the harp world’s best-kept secrets. Its first undergraduate degree - the DEM that Maureen took - qualifies you to then take the entrance audition for the undergraduate course at the CNSMDP. This can be very handy to remember if you cannot immediately apply to the CNSM because you do not speak French, and / or haven’t done solfège: you have to pass exams in both before you may proceed to the harp audition. The results speak for themselves: of the seven candidates to make the CNSM audition’s final in 2010, five with Ghislaine’s students from the CRR. Harpblog has covered this subject before, in “Studying in...Paris”.
Back to Maureen: as well as winning first prize and the Louise Charpentier prize in the Cité des Arts of Paris competition in November 2011, Maureen also won third prize and the "coup de coeur" prize at the Martine Géliot International Competition in 2008. She is principal harpist with the Manifesto Orchestra, and has also worked with the Paris Opera (2011), the Orchestre des Siècles (2010), and the Orchestre Prométhée (2008). She performs regular solo recitals, and teaches at the Animathèque MJC in Sceaux.
The number of harp competitions has exploded in recent years, meaning that harp students prepare and focus on them more than ever before. As sponsors, we also attend more competitions than ever before, and - more than ever before - one notices the difference between candidates who have approached a competition wisely, and those who haven’t. But what is this “wisely”? Perceptively, Maureen points out that doing a competition is not like filling out a form, either correctly or incorrectly: “I would never presume to lecture harpists on how exactly to win a competition, because each person prepares in their own way, and has his own reasons for doing a competition.”
Despite the variety in individual competition preparation and reasons for doing it, nonetheless it is clear that you must prepare carefully, and you do have to have reasons. Fact: if you aren’t ready, you’ll not win a serious competition. Even if nobody else as good as you turns up, I’ve never met a harp jury that forgives insufficient preparation, and prizes can be and are withheld all the time. In an article by Adrienne Bridgewater in the January / February 2010 edition of Harp Column Magazine, her entire interviewed panel of competition winners emphasise their preparation: “Our panel said they began anywhere from as soon as the repertoire list was published to seven months before the competition. ‘At the last minute’ was not an answer we heard from the group.” Sam Karlinski, who writes a detailed and helpful blog about competition preparation, offers a year’s timeline in the same article. For the biggest competitions, the repertoire lists usually come out two years in advance, and there is a reason why they do.
If you cannot devote yourself to nothing but the competition in the two years running up to it, you can still approach the programme strategically. “I began immediately with Conte Fantastique, which I felt to be by far the most difficult work on the programme”, Maureen explains. “Beginning it so early allowed me to perform it on numerous occasions, in exams and concerts, and to gain experience with it. The previous year had been very hectic for me, with a lot of lessons, exams, and work at the Paris Opera. As a result, I couldn’t devote myself entirely to the competition until July, five months before. I then practised for about four hours a day, increasing the time as the date grew closer.”As well as preparation, Maureen stresses the importance of knowing why you are doing the competition. “As far as I’m concerned, the greatest lesson I retained from this preparation (one I am far from applying elsewhere as it is so difficult!) is that, paradoxically, the preparation of a competition requires great neutrality. You must not judge yourself during this period, not say “oh goodness, I’m so behind” or “I will never manage to learn this piece”, or even “great, that’ll play itself” (for all that positive thinking can be helpful!). For me, the two great questions to ask yourself are, during preparation, “why am I doing this competition”? and, one week before, “am I ready?”. If you have positive answers to both these questions, you should be able to walk onto the competition stage in a good frame of mind.
The rest of the time, you have to work, to be happy to be playing beautiful music, and to profit from this special time with your instrument. I have happy memories of the preparation, during which I learnt and discovered so much! This first prize is also thanks to the quality of the teaching I have at the CNSMDP, through the harp lessons from Isabelle Moretti and Geneviève Letang, and also the chamber music and musicianship classes. Also, when you prepare a competition, you spend a lot of time alone with your instrument. I came to know more about my desires in life, my strengths and weaknesses, which crystallised themselves through my intense tête à tête with my instrument. A competition is not only about steeling yourself for the fateful moment, although of course you need to get yourself in shape to cope with the stress on the day. Like everyone else, I had difficult times, where I felt discouraged, questioned and doubted myself. But the work is also full of beautiful things: tenderness, joy, even the love that goes into playing music.”
Maureen playing Caplet's 'Conte Fantastique' with the Quatuor Michalakakos, in the final of the Cité des Arts competition. Photo: Jean-Marc Volta
As part of her prize, Maureen will be playing a series of recitals in European countries, including Germany, Italy and Wales. Keep an eye on the Harpblog calendar for the details. I leave you with her recording of Fauré’s Impromptu, the compulsory work in the Cité des Arts competition first round, as well as the complete Scarlatti sonata.
January’s Camac voice is the exhilarating finale to a substantial work for harp quartet, commissioned and performed by the British ensemble 4 Girls 4 Harps. This work, ‘Saraswati’ by Edward Longstaff, is inspired by Saraswati the Hindu goddess of music (as well as of knowledge, art, science and technology). She is usually depicted with four arms, portrayed here by the four harp parts. For this recording, 4 Girls 4 Harps added a tabla line, from Sanju Sahai, to emphasise the work’s powerful rhythmic quality as well as its Indian influences.
Harpblog posted an article about 4G4H nearly two years ago, in February 2010. You can read about the group’s beginnings here. As they have scaled the ranks from student quartet to a highly polished professional ensemble, they have remained true to their wish significantly to expand the harp quartet repertoire - also for other harpists.
December’s Camac Voice is a lively piece of Celtic music. It is from a French artist whose roots are in Breton traditional music, but who in fact has become one of the most eclectic harpists we know of today. Nikolaz Cadoret began his harp studies on the lever harp, in Dominig Bouchaud’s famous harp class in Quimper, Brittany. A standard course of events would be either to use the lever harp as a stepping-stone to the pedal harp, or to become a lever harp specialist. Nicolaz, however, plays both instruments professionally - and that's not all: he also plays jazz, electronic music, and does a lot of experimental, improvisatory multimedia.
Two hornpipes: The Kildare Fancy and The Rights of Man
Nikolaz was the winner of the Camac Trophy at the distinguished Festival Interceltique de Lorient in 2010; a prizewinner at the Kan Ar Bobl Celtic competition; and has appeared as a soloist on top Celtic stages like the Rencontres Internationales de Harpe de Dinan, and the famous Breton dance gatherings "Fest-Noz". At the same time, Nikolaz pursued classical harp studies, firstly with Evelyne Gaspart in Rennes, then with Catherine Michel in Zurich and Xavier de Maistre in Hamburg. In the pedal harp field, he has won prizes at theUSA International Harp Competition, Bloomington, the Reinl Wettbewerb in Vienna, and holds the Prix Philippe Chaignat from the Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad. He has held the Principal Harp position of both the Sinfonieorchester Aachen and the Komische Oper, Berlin, and regularly works with orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Deutsches Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, and even as far afield as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
"I didn’t deliberately set out to become a harpist of many diverse styles", Nikolaz explains. "It happened by chance, because I began on the lever harp in Dominig’s class, and that’s not a class that just uses the lever harp as a beginning instrument before moving on to the pedal harp. So a serious approach to traditional music was instilled in me from an early age. I just knew I wanted to play the harp, and to express myself through the harp. If I need a classical instrument to say what I want to say, then I will go to the pedal harp; if I want to improvise, then I will do that; if I want to explore amplified music, then I will go to my blue harp.
Obviously, different styles of music nourish and inform each other. Your approach to all aspects of music – melody, harmony, rhythm, structure, how you approach a performance on-stage – everything is coloured by your fundamental training. It is like a painter who chooses to express himself in abstract forms, but knows how to draw precisely from life. His classical study informs his abstract work.
One example most harpists can relate to is the issue of improvisation versus the classical approach, which is more recreative than creative. I have a great respect for the classical devotion to a score, its wish to replicate the composer’s wishes as exactly as possible. But you will find many classical musicians, if they devote themselves exclusively to this, feel extremely uncomfortable attempting any sort of music that does not have a score to follow. To me, this state of affairs is actually a distortion of so-called "written music": up to the beginning of the twentieth century, the score was more a "grid" around which you were allowed and even encouraged to improvise! You can make music however you like, but perhaps your course should not end up actively blocking you from exploring any other types of music.
I see any performance as an event, your own event. Audiences don’t – outside the realms of competitions, which to an extent are artificial situations – come to hear a perfect rendition of a piece; they come to experience the event that you, the artist, creates. This feeling is self-evident for musicians who improvise, because you don’t know what is going to happen in advance – it has to be your event, what you decide to play is the entire sum of the event, not a score. Of course, when you play classical music, the score is an essential part of it. But you still, as a performer, need to be totally present yourself, and I find my experience with improvisation very helpful in reminding me of this.
One of my recent projects is an artists’ collective, Polop. It began with my brother-in-law, who is a photographer specialising in construction sites. One night we were sitting in a bar, and he said that he would like to branch out and do something with musicians, and I was interested right away. I went with him to see a construction site in the north of Paris, and I was bowled over by what I felt to be the sonic power of the place.
Above: 55-minute improvisation in the basement of a construction site
Photo: Alexandre Soria
I wanted to work on something that explored relationships between not just different styles of music, but different art forms altogether. Little by little, Collectif Polop grew, and nowmixes different musicians with videography, photography, sound engineering, etc. Our objective is always to bring different media together, so we always combine at least two art forms. I am trying to find the music in, for example, images, or video, or photography or dance. It’s like a big laboratory of different artists, all participating in work about – well, about freedom!
Another substantial project I’m working on at the moment is my harp duo with my wife, Alice Soria-Cadoret. We’re planning two tours for the next two seasons (2012-2013 and 2013-14), and both shows will present a panorama of Celtic harp music arranged for two harps - including its very diverse history. We’re going to perform these shows on electric lever harps. There is absolutely no reason why traditional music should always be performed on traditional instruments. By definition, traditional music has always soaked up the music and culture(s) in which it finds itself – which is why you get Celtic rock, or jazz/world fusion.
In music, or in art generally, I see no reason why you shouldn't do what you like, so long as you do it intelligently. If it wasn't intelligent it wouldn't be art, and different genres help us to explore art intelligently by teaching us things, by training us. But art is also about self-expression, and it's up to the artist to use his foundations to set himself free."
You can keep up with Nikolaz’s work on his excellent blog, as well as on MySpace.
