Harpblog

Swiss Harp Festival, 2012

Between March 31st and April 1st, Camac will be exhibiting at the Swiss Harp Festival 2012. The festival will take place in Ligerz, and offer a busy two-day programme. From traditional Irish music with Màire Ni Chathasaigh, to a virtuoso opera-inspired programme performed by Letizia Belmondo, Mahalia Kelz's RagHarps and the presentation of Bernhard Hofer's laser harp, there will be something for everyone!

More information is available on the Swiss Harp Association website.

 

Wow! Bernhard's laser harp

And from Venice, to Ireland...

It’s going to be an eventful weekend at l’Espace Camac. This Saturday, March 17th, we’ll be celebrating St Patrick’s Day! Between 2 and 5PM, Christine Merienne will give a workshop on Irish music, followed by a concert at 6. This is the day before our Carte Blanche à Patrizia Tassini and Maureen Thiébaut - all in all, the perfect excuse for a weekend in Paris.

Both events are free, but as ever, space is limited, so please contact Claude to reserve your places: +33 40 40 08 40 / c.bouly@camac-harps.com.

 

Venezia again! @ the Gregynog Festival

On the subject of Venice - Wales's oldest classical music festival, the Gregynog Festival, has Venezia as its theme this year. And there are two big harp moments...

 

On June 21st, Rhodri Davies has been invited to give a recital as part of the festival in the National Museum of Wales. Rhian Davies, the festival's curator, has commissioned Rhodri to create a graphic score based on the three Monet paintings of Venice in the National Museum, bought by the Davies sisters of Gregynog in 1912. The score will be based on the water in these three pictures, with a working title of "acqua alta".

 

This is far from Rhodri's debut with graphic scores. At the time of the last Wales International Harp Festival in Caernarfon, he made one for the John Parry tercentenary - with 300 holes in the Parry Four Lessons. He also gave a workshop on graphic scores for the 2009 Camac Harp Days at Trinity College of Music, London, working with Catherine Kontz's "Tea Ceremony".You can find Rhodri's complete programme here, on the festival site - including John Cage's "Sounds of Venice" (1959). 

On June 18th, there will be another Gregynog harp recital: this one "Carnaval de Venise" by current royal harpist, Hannah Stone.

Master Class di Isabelle Moretti, 11 e 12 Maggio, Conservatorio di Venezia

Isabelle Moretti. Photo: Eric Larrayadieu

On May 11th and 12th, Isabelle Moretti will give a masterclass - open to the public - at the Venice Conservatory. For more information, please contact Enrico Tartarotti at Camac Italia: info@camac-italia.it.

Some restored, antique harps

At our factory in Mouzeil, we've been restoring some antique harps. On Facebook, Jakez has uploaded photo albums of two of the restored harps - you can find them on our page. As part of our upcoming fortieth anniversary celebrations in Ancenis, there will be an exhibition of Jakez's private harp collection, and both these harps will be on display.

 

 

 

Above: a single-action Challiot harp. It sounds great and should be playable, after some regulation.

 

Above: a single-action by Jean-Henri Naderman (1734-1799), harpmaker to Queen Marie-Antoinette. Unfortunately, this one is not going to be playable, but look how beautifully it was made!

 

 

 

First Taiwanese electroacoustic harp showcase, Taipei National Concert Hall, April 2nd

 
Intrigued by the poster above? Your Camac sleuths were kindly emailed a translation have cracked the language barrier to reveal an even more intriguing concert. On April 2nd, 2012, at 7:30 PM in the Taipei National Concert Hall, Isabelle Perrin, Shannon Cheih and friends will perform the following programme:

Bernard Andrès: Elégie pour la mort d'un berger (Harp/ Multimedia Photography)

Pierrick Houdy: Sonate

Chung-Kun Hung: Pensée (Harp Solo/ Interactive Multimedia)

Sergiu Natra: Cantosonate (World Premiere)

Shi-Wei Luo: Things Hoped For, Things Unseen (World Premiere - Solo Harp/ Electronic Music/ Interactive Multimedia)

Bernard Andrès: Parvis (Harp Duet /Dancer/ Multimedia)

INTERVAL

Maciej Malecki: Concertino in Old Style for Two Harps and Orchestra

Elzbieta Sikora: "South Shore": Concertino for Blue Harp and Orchestra
 
Multimedia Artists: Martin Jarmick, Yung-Ta Chang, Chien-Jung Chen

Choreographer: I-Shan WuDancer: Wan-Luen Yu

Stage Design: Mung-Chao Wang

Conductor: Li-Ping Cheng

and

the Chamber Philharmonic Taipei

After the concert, on April 4th, there will be a harp day organised together with the Taiwan Harp Association. There will be a masterclass with Isabelle, a harp exhibition, and Jakez will give a lecture about Camac harps and a jazz harp workshop. Jakez will also give an impromptu performance, with pop singer Paige Su.

Sikora's "South Shore" is the first concertino for blue harp and orchestra. It was jointly commissioned by Camac Harps and the Polish Harp Society, and the premiere took place as part of the second Katowice International Harp Festival, with Isabelle Perrin and the New Music Orchestra, conducted by Szymon Bywalec. The concertino's title refers to the shores of Lake Michigan: Sikora composed the work during a residency at the University of Chicago. Because the blue harp can be amplified, and the harp can thus simply become loud enough, the dialogue between the solo harp and the orchestra can at long last take place on a truly equal footing. The colourful play between harp and orchestra is particularly explored in the opening Allegretto, where Sikora lays out the entire work's musical material. The solo instrument begins with a short, two-note motif, which develops and builds up; similarly, the orchestra begins with some soft shadowy backing, that soon grows into a strong partner in the musical dialogue. The second movement, Lento Possibile, explores different ways of producing sounds on the solo blue harp, before the final, very rhythmic Vivo showcases the harp's virtuosity. Read more about the premiere in the Spring / Summer 2008 edition of Harpseasons. 

A crucial benchmark for a new work is how often, or even whether, it is performed again. It can be especially tricky to get a harp concerto re-performed because of the financial and logistical issues involved with an orchestra, and it is fantastic to witness "South Shore" passing the test. In fact, the Taipei concert will be its third performance: Isabelle also played it with the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Jerzy Maksymiuk, at the Gdansk contemporary music festival in 2009.

What is particularly interesting about the upcoming concert in Taiwan is that it is a multimedia event, with video and photo displays. It is also a concert for human rights, organised in association with the Taiwan Human Rights Association and the Judicial Reform Foundation, and with "La vie sans frontières" as its theme.

 

Camac Voice, March 2012: Marcella Carboni and Elisabetta Antonini

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.