Harpblog

Camac Review of the Year 2011

As the last day of 2011 approaches, here's to leaning back, humming the last refrains from the Samuel-Rousseau Variations, admiring all the new harps we got for Christmas, and reflecting on the year that's been.

 

2011 began for Camac with a concert tribute to our founder, Joël Garnier on January 8th, marking the tenth anniversary of his death. We were extremely touched by the response to this event from the harp community. All the artists we invited to play accepted immediately, and if we had known how many people would want to come and listen, we would have rented a bigger hall. In May 2012, we will hold a weekend-long festival in Ancenis, to celebrate Camac's own fortieth anniversary. There, we will also welcome many artists Joël knew and loved: we wish he could be there to greet them once again, and - like the memorial concert - the event will be a joyous occasion, a party in Joël's spirit.

We continue both to organise our own artistic events, and sponsor those of others. Our 2011 festivals include the Second Beijing Harp Festival, in collaboration with our Chinese partners Beijing Aria Cultural Development; the blue harp festival Odyssée de la Harpe, now in its sixth year; and our annual Camac Festival in regional France, this year in Angers. We also held La Festival de la Harpe, in Princeton in May, in collaboration with our partners The Virginia Harp Center. This new festival was a great success, with a broad programme ranging from Celtic music with Janet Harbison, jazz with our very own Jakez François, a star recital and masterclass from Catrin Finch, yoga for harpists, and a MIDI harp workshop with Jakez and Arnaud Roy.

Camac's MIDI harp has had a busy year. On January 26th, 2011, Sioned Williams and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Litton, premiered the first concerto for the instrument: 'No Doubt' by Graham Fitkin. This work used vocal samples from politicians from the time of the Iraq war, as Fitkin aimed to "turn...the archetypal Western perspective of the harp and its associated heavenly docility...on its head."

 

 

Following the concerto in London, the black and white MIDI harp returned to Paris to join its blue brother at the IRCAM in Paris, for an extensive composition residency organised together with Ghislaine Petit-Volta. This residency brought together three pairs of student harpists and composers to create three new works for the MIDI harp, which you can read about here. Also in Paris, we were honoured to find the MIDI harp awarded the Max Matthews Prize for technological innovation at the Qwartz Awards. The award ceremony was also an occasion to welcome a new MIDI harp composition: Harp Haikus, by Elisabeth Valletti. Looking ahead, Elisabeth is writing a new album dedicated to the MIDI harp, which will be released in autumn 2012.

 

Au Revoir Florence

As the year draws to a close, it is time to bid farewell to Florence Lédi, who is leaving us for new adventures in a different direction.

 

Florence joined Camac in 2004 as our rédactrice-en-chef. In charge of Harpseasons, our quarterly newsletter of the last seven years, Florence has been entirely responsible for its warm, lively and incisive identity. Harpseasons's articles benefited not only from Florence's beautiful command of the French language, but also from her perspective as someone originally from outside the harp world. When you play a minority instrument, it is easy to become too niche; yet insularity benefits nobody, and Florence and her articles rapidly and deservedly grew popular with harpists all over the world.

 

 

We don't feel that Harpseasons could continue in the same vein without Florence, and so we will preserve it as it is, rather than continue to have it written by another person. You can download all the back issues here. There is also a fabulous Harpseasons special issue, which Florence created for the Vancouver World Harp Congress. This publication will continue to be available throughout 2012 (please email harpblog@camac-harps.com with your postal address if you would like a copy). We wish Florence all the very best for her new ventures, and we will treasure the piece of Camac history she has made.

 

 

 

Season's Greetings!

Beautiful Season's Greetings from Cristina Braga and Ricardo Medeiros

Cristina Braga and Ricardo Medeiros have just recorded this Led Zeppelin cover in the Sacra Familia region of the coffee valley in the Rio mountains - "to celebrate hope and the New Year", as Cristina writes. The lyrics to the last verse are:

And it's whispered that soon, if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter

Camac Ibérica Opening Celebrations

 

To celebrate the launch of our new partner for Spain and Portugal, Camac Ibérica, Camac France are sponsoring an inaugural concert and masterclass weekend, at the Camac Ibérica store in Madrid.

On Saturday, January 14th, there will be a concert in two parts. The first part will be a flute and harp programme by Boris Grelier and Marie Normant; after the interval, Isabelle Moretti will give a solo recital. You can download the full programme here:

Download Camac Ibérica Opening Concert

On Sunday, January 15th, between 4PM and 6PM, Isabelle Moretti will give a masterclass for students. Both concert and masterclass are free of charge and open to all, but it is a good idea to reserve a place in advance.

To book as an auditor for the concert and/or masterclass, or to enquire about participating in the masterclass, please contact Sr. Alexander Granados by telephone: +34 91 006 37 27 - +34 61 964 89 68 (please do not email).

 

 

La Casa del Arpa: Camac Ibérica, Madrid

 

We're delighted to announce that a new Camac store has now opened in Madrid:

Camac Ibérica, La Casa Del Arpa

Alexander Granados Rodriguez

Calle San Pedro, 7
28014 Madrid 

Tel. +34 910063727
Fax +34 619648968

alexander.granados@camac-harps.com

 

 

Camac Ibérica is situated in Madrid's artistic and cultural district, the Barrio de las Letras, and in the middle of a triangle made by the Museo del Prado, the Museo Reina Sofia and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. It is ten minutes' walk from the very centre of the city, ten minutes from the Atocha main railway station, a whole three minutes from the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música - it could not be easier to get to, and it has plenty of accomodation possibilities to suit all tastes and budgets. 

The store itself consists of over one hundred square metres filled with a wide range of our concert, lever and electric harps, as well as - of course - strings, accessories and music. A practice studio is already busily in use by harpists for teaching, or for an hour or two's work when it is more convenient to be practising there than at home. 

Very importantly, Camac Ibérica is headed by an experienced harp technician, Alexander Granados, and so also offers full technical support.

 

Alexander Granados. Spanish-speakers can read an interview with Alexander in El Pais, here.

Alexander Granados originally trained as a piano tuner at the ITEMM (the Institut technologique des études des métiers de la musique) in Le Mans, France. He was the first Spaniard to receive the official diploma in piano-tuning from this institution, and his studies were sponsored by the professional piano sector in Spain. As he is the son of Mickaèle Granados, principal harpist with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, he had already had some exposure to the harp world, and he knew that the Camac factory, in Mouzeil, is not far away from Le Mans. He therefore used the opportunity, while studying nearby, to visit our head office.

As Spain needed a resident harp technician, Alexander subsequently trained as one, and this took over from his piano-tuning work. For four years, he was a busy freelance technician working on all makes of harps. "I worked on private harps, and on those belonging to orchestras, conservatoires and schools," Alexander explains. "My work gave me a broad overview of the Spanish market and I could see that in fact harpists in Spain don't have much practical support available to them - I was the only resident technician, and as there was no store, it was hard to get hold of any harp supplies quickly. I therefore decided to open a harp shop, with a fully professional service for harpists. Up until now, Spanish harpists have had to rely on the harp section of more general music stores. Naturally, these stores are not run by harp specialists, and they cannot always offer a harpist the best solutions. 

Throughout the course of my work as a harp technician, I had always had a good relationship with Camac. I admired their client service and, as a technician, I was very impressed by their instruments. It is much more fun to regulate a Camac harp than any other make. Apart from the fact it is much quicker and easier to do so, Camac's design innovations have made their harps the most stable on the market. There are fewer possibilities for something to go wrong with a Camac harp than with another make. From the player's point of view, the tension across the harp is more even than any other make I know, and the instruments are lighter and more comfortable to play. Finally, most importantly, I am amazed by the work Camac have done to improve the harp's sound. The instruments keep getting better and better, and it is very exciting to follow their development.

 

Camac Ibérica is very accessible, in the centre of Madrid, and set up with practice and teaching facilities in the form of its in-built studio. It's been great to see that harpists are already making use of this - usually there are always at least two people either practising or teaching, one in the studio and one in the main shop - being applauded by the interested crowds that sometimes gather in the street outside!

I am looking forward to being able to offer Spanish harpists a fuller, more immediate service than has ever been available to them before."

 

 

 

 

Vote for Grand Square Dance at the Sweden Rock Festival

 

Grand Square Dance, the French rock band featuring Lena Woods on vocals and DHC Blue Light, are in the running for a performance slot at the Sweden Rock Festival, which will take place in Sölvesborg from June 6th - 9th, 2012. Grand Square Dance is among the last one hundred bands selected out of over fifteen hundred entries in the festival's band competition - the final three winners get a gig at the festival, and voting is done online. If you would like to support them, cast your vote here!

A hundred harps for Christmas Eve in Taipei!

Jakez is off on a regulation tour to Taiwan this week. I've got a feeling he's going to be pretty busy, because he is going shortly before an amazing harp marathon is due to take place. If he's going to be regulating even half the harps that are travelling to Taipei City to take part in the marathon, he'll have his hands full.

 

Jakez'll be on his own in Taiwan, as Liza Jensen's not going

The harp marathon has been organised by Shannon Chieh, principal harpist with the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, and her colleagues at the Taiwan Harp Association Meng-Lu Chiu, Shu-Hsin Chen, Chia-Yuan Liang, Chi-Mei Hung and Yi-Wen Kuang. The marathon will begin at 2PM on Christmas Eve in the Grand Lobby of Taipei Central Station, and consist of a continuous programme of various harp-related performances right up until midnight. The marathon's grand finale will be a massive ensemble of one hundred harps, performing three suites specially-written for the occasion: a Christmas medley, a Taiwanese folksong suite, and a Taiwanese aboriginal suite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shannon Cheih

"We had been planning this event for some time", Shannon told me last week on the phone, "but we reached a sticking-point because we couldn't find a venue big enough for an ensemble of one hundred harps. Being offered the station's Grand Lobby was a stroke of luck - it's huge, and over five hundred thousand people will probably pass by our show. Also, the station wanted the event to go on for as long as possible on one day. While we had originally conceived of a three-day event, we therefore changed this to one big non-stop marathon! 

We'll begin with as many different harp performances as we can - harp solo, harp chamber music, harp ensembles of various sizes and ages, and also harpists with special additional talents - like singing, performing magic tricks, and even tango dancing. Everyone who has already performed will join in with the grand finale. 

Prior to the harp marathon, Jakez will be the special guest at our press conference for the event. This will be on December 15th, at 2:30pm in the Tapei station Grand Lobby. Jakez will perform during the press conference, and follow this with a jazz workshop at 5PM, in the conference room at the station."

 

Listings updates

 

I've just changed Harpblog's calendar system, and added a "competitions, auditions, jobs and opportunities" page. 

We do our best to keep on top of what opportunities are currently available in the harp world, but if you know of something missing from the list, please email harpblog@camac-harps.com and tell us!

It's also brilliant to hear news of your individual concerts - this is the reason why I have switched the calendar from a list of dates to a proper online calendar, as it's easier to present more news clearly. So, if you would like to advertise events on Harpblog, please send them in.

New harp and viola repertoire with Duo Esprit

It was nice to hear a different harp+ensemble piece (Caplet's Conte Fantastique) at the Concours Cité des Arts. The choice of the final round concerto is always tricky, as on the one hand you want to set something candidates will then be able to use often; on the other, you want to spare the jury from death by Debussy, and even broaden everyone's artistic horizons.

One aspect of the harp repertoire that can happily welcome an extension is harp and viola: apart from the famous Bax sonata, there is not much original music (much of what there is is helpfully documented by Clinton Nieweg here). Colorado harpist Ann Marie Liss is working on this, with Colorado Symphony viola principal Basil Vendryes - together, they are Duo Esprit.

 

© 2009 Kellie Travers

Ann Marie and Basil began working together out of mutual admiration for each other's playing, and a desire to make their own recording of Bax's Fantasy-Sonata. One piece, however, does not a concert duo make, and they soon busily set about transcribing existing and commissioning new music for the combination. These transcriptions include Chopin Nocturnes, viola works by Bridge, the third Liszt Liebestraum, Gerschwin's Prelude No.2 (in its original key, "so the pedals are insane", as Ann Marie says), and an ambitious new duo version of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Suite for Viola and Orchestra. 

Alongside this, the duo has already commissioned a substantial amount of entirely new pieces. These include music by Justin Taylor, David Tcimpidis (distinguished professor at Mannes School of Music, NY), Christopher Malloy, Andrea Ferrante, Riccardo Iznaola (Composer, concert guitar and recording artist, orginally from Cuba), and Chason Goldfinger. Basil and Ann Marie are also in talks with grammy-nominated composer Robert Paterson who wants to write for them, as well as film composer Robert Litton.

"We also just got the fresh-off-the-press notes this week from The Playground Ensemble director, Conrad Kehn, to be premiered in Feb 2012, and we're waiting for the final version of a piece from a Texan astrophysicist composer working in Chile, Martin Gaskell", Ann Marie reports. "It's funny how quickly our vision has moved away from "just" recording the Bax and playing a few local recitals to being asked to travel the country now. I think some people might be suspicious of us becoming a strictly contemporary music ensemble because of the commissioning aspect, but it's been interesting to hear how non-modern some of the works sound so far. Every new piece is an adventure!"

If you're interested in discovering this repertoire, Ann Marie and Basil hope to make a recording soon. Meanwhile, keep an eye on Duo Esprit's concert schedule - or if you run a concert season, invite them to perform, because substantial recordings don't get paid for by the substantial-recording fairy.