Harpblog

Taller Itinerante de Arpa Clasica: Harp Travelling Workshop

Following on from Edmar Castaneda's new album, Harpblog has another piece of news about the harp in Latin America. It's a very special project for Latin American harp students, that will take place in Mexico between the 25th and 30th of April, 2012. It is: a travelling harp workshop, organised by Isabelle Moretti (France), Mercedes Gomez (Mexico) and Marisela González (Venezuela).

Before this article goes any further, here is an essential practicality: the application form! Closing date: March 10th. 

Download TALLER ITINERANTE DE ARPA DE PEDALES CON ISABELLE MORETTI

And now, here's some more about the project from the artists themselves!

 

 

Isabelle Moretti. Photo: Eric Larrayadieu

 

After two journeys with my husband, the one to Venezuela to El Sistema, and the other to Mexico with Mercedes Gomez, I became truly aware of how lucky we French musicians are, to have almost everything we need while others have practically nothing. Of course, I had already been aware of this, but these journeys really brought it home to me, almost physically.

The traditional Criolla harp is an instrument widely played in Central and South America, but the “classical” harp struggles to fulfil its potential because of significant difficulties – a lack of instruments, strings and music, but also a lack of contact with the outside classical music world, and little access to teaching (I mean, contact other than on YouTube !). On the other hand, the goodwill, courage and self-sacrifice of certain teachers is not lacking at all!

It was in meeting two of these fantastic teachers, Mercedes Gomez from Mexico and Marisela Gonzales from Caracas, that I very much wanted to do something concrete, by offering my help as a soloist and as professor at the CNSM in Paris.

Mercedes and Marisela know their countries very well. Their knowledge is extremely valuable and after long discussions, it became clear to us that the most useful thing to do would be to create a travelling classical harp workshop. If the workshop travels, this permits the young harpists of Central and South America to take part more easily, by reducing the duration and price of their journey. 

We are thinking, in the first instance, of beginning in the two cities of Mexico and Caracas. Following the initial results and level of interest, it would of course be possible to expand our field of action at a later date. It is a journey for us all. We hope that by putting our knowledge together, we will be best able to help all these young harpists who deserve it so much.

Isabelle Moretti

 

Mercedes Gomez

THE INFINITE IMPORTANCE OF SHARING

What might some harpists in France, Venezuela and Mexico have in common - besides playing the harp, being women, and enjoying teaching? 

Possibly, in this case, it is that the three of us own a dictionary that includes the verb to SHARE. Our project started when Isabelle Moretti (France) was teaching in Brazil. Marisela González (Venezuela) was also working there, and after her course had finished, Isabelle travelled to Mexico, where I live. Marisela, Isabelle and I began discussing the harp world in Latin America, and its difficulties.

We decided to use this verb "to share". We started thinking about how to share our very different experiences. We wanted a workshop in which Isabelle, with her enormous talent and amazing experience, could help us to strengthen the studies of our harp students in Latin America, as we know this needs hard work. We thought a lot about what to call this experience, and decided on TALLER ITINERANTE DE ARPA CLÁSICA, which means the CLASSICAL HARP TRAVELLING WORKSHOP.

Our Taller Itinerante is specifically addressed to Latin American students, who, owing to their political, economic and cultural circumstances, generally have had much less access to opportunities, instruments, strings and scores than students from first world countries. The travelling workshop that will take place in April is a first adventure. We will see how it goes, shape it while it's happening, and keep a fresh, open-minded spirit. 

Isabelle, Marisela and I have been practicing our three languages at different levels, thinking “out loud” at our computers (what a crazy image! My grandma would not have a clue what I'm talking about!). We have discussed how to structure the sessions - these will include individual classes, and technique sessions in groups - and how to open the application process. 

While the three of us were doing the artistic planning, I contacted schools and institutions in Mexico to see who could host and support the workshop. Janet Paulus and Artemisa González, our generous colleagues and professors at the Escuela Nacional de Música (part of the National University UNAM) jumped for joy at the idea. They spoke with their director, Francisco Viesca, who has respected and supported a lot of our harp ideas, competitions, master classes and other projects over the last few years. Camac Harps also kindly volunteered to sponsor us.

Thanks to this wonderful support, we are ready to launch the project and send out the application forms. I promise to let you know how this adventure will develop. There have already been wonderful benefits, like sharing some Venezuelan and Mexican harp repertoire with Isabelle, her recommending some French teaching literature, and the three of us being very aware and respectful of the different situations and contexts from which we come. 

All this, besides making us more aware of how vital it is that artists work together, fills my heart with gratitude and the molto crescendo joy of sharing.

¡GRACIAS, THANKS, MERCI, GOOD LUCK, BONNE CHANCE Y BUENA SUERTE! 

Mercedes Gómez Benet, Mexico

 

Marisela Gonzales

 

Regardless of the challenges we face in Latin America, we are teaching the harp and we will continue to do so! But I also feel we must do something inspiring for our students, who love their instrument so much that they overcome all the difficulties, and keep practising as much as they can. 

Last year, after meeting Isabelle Moretti at a festival we had in Brazil, and experiencing what a  motivation she was for the students, Isabelle offered enthusiastically to help us. So here we are, with a programme of masterclasses and technical workshops for students of all levels. This way, we are giving a chance to students who would probably never be able to travel abroad to hear harpists other than their own teachers: a chance to play or to hear these masterclasses and workshops in our own countries with a unique harpist. It will be a week of students of different levels playing and re-playing together, watching, talking, observing and absorbing as much as they can. They will also know that this is going to happen again, close enough for them to get to; they will be able, in other words, through this repeated experience to keep growing as harpists.  I am certain that our workshop is going to be a chance for sharing: not just experience or knowledge, but the joy of learning and playing together.

Of course I want to thank Isabelle Moretti, Mercedes Gómez, Artemisa Reyes, Janet Paulus and Camac Harps for their generosity and support.

Marisela Gonzalez, Venezuela

Updated summer school information

We try to schedule our Qatar regulation tours in middle of the European winter

It is minus eleven outside as I type this (minus twenty-three in Moscow!), so it's nice to think ahead to 2012's summer schools, whose websites are now mostly updated for this year. On Harpblog's opportunities page, you will now find links to the summer academies with, among others, Isabelle Moretti, Germaine Lorenzini and Isabelle Perrin. I'll be adding to this list throughout the long, cold winter.

USA Young Artists' Harp Seminar and Competition, July 2012

The vast, world-wide audience that was glued to CamacCam throughout last year's World Harp Congress in Vancouver will already know about the USA Young Artists' Harp Seminar and Competition. Harpcolumn's Kimberly Rowe kindly talked to our CamacCam cameras about the event - watch it again here!

For those of you who missed CamacCam because - I don't know, maybe because you were not yet born in July 2011 - the YAHS and competition is a great double event, which will take place in the summer of 2012 in Georgia, USA. The competition happens first, starting on July 11th; after that, you can relax and enjoy the seminar from July 14th - 28th.

The competition is open to harpists up to the age of nineteen - find all details about repertoire and regulations (you need to make a video for the preliminary stage) here.

The seminar will be taught by Kimberly Rowe, Susan Bennett Brady, and a fine line-up of assistants and student counsellors, and this year also welcomes none other than Judy Loman as guest artist. The seminar's entire programme is excellently designed to cover all the most important student harp bases - from private lessons to orchestral excerpts, ensemble playing, stage presence, memorisation, music theory, coping with performance nerves and so on. 

 

Video - changing harp strings

"What do you mean, your dad changes your harp strings? We did changing strings in your first term. What are you going to do when you're doing your concerto and one breaks, is your dad going to come on-stage and help you out?"

Goodbye, string stress - you can refer your pupils instead to this super video by Elizabeth Jaxon on how to change harp strings. This topic is knot easy (boom-ching) until you get the hang of it, so it's great to have a video aid. Elizabeth has also thoughtfully included a "tips" section at the end, about how to stop high strings slipping off their tags, handling the gut strings that are too thick for tags, and changing bass wires. 

 

 

Catrin Finch Academy, July 2012

Interesting new orchestral study opportunity in Strasbourg

Please see the French blog for information about a new audition for orchestral training, with accompanying professional experience, in Strasbourg.

Harpmasters Academy opens new youth division

News from Harpmasters, the Swiss summer school where we are currently the guest artist sponsors. This year, Harpmasters will include sessions for beginner to intermediate level harpists, in a small group and supportive atmosphere. Young Harpmasters will take place between 27th - 29th July, 2011, in Muenchenbuchsee in Bern, Switzerland. The course programme will offer a daily masterclass with profs-in-res Milda Agazarian and Irina Zingg, a celebrity guest recital by Vasilisa Luschevskaya, and the opportunity for private lessons.

Despite the title, Young Harpmasters has no age limit - whereby young participants are also welcome with their families, who could use the occasion to holiday in this lovely part of Switzerland. Further information and registration forms can be found here.

The professional division of Harpmasters will run from July 31st to August 7th, with a star-studded pedagogic team. Milda Agazarian and Skaila Kanga will be professors-in-residence; Ursula Holliger will give lessons in contemporary music; Isabelle Moretti and Germaine Lorenzini will give a joint masterclass, and there will be recitals by Isabelle, Marielle Nordmann, and young artists Vasilisa Luschevskaya and Elen Hydref. More details here.

Once there was a drop of water...PLING!

Thank you very much to Cécile Becquart-Orzan for sending us this account of an exchange project between two music schools! It is an inspiration for all of us with young harp classes!

In 2010 (on May 30th in Cognac, and June 27th in Anglet), the harp classes from the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Intercommunal de la Communauté de Communes de Cognac, and the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Bayonne, carried out an usually special exchange. They performed a musical - PLING - by Olivier Bensa, which featured one flute and no less than twenty-three Camac harps on the stage!

Directed by the harp professors at the two conservatoires, Cécile Becquart-Orzan from Cognac and Michèle Orzan from Bayonne, PLING is the story - over thirteen different scenes - of a drop of water, travelling around the world. The twenty-three assembled harpists were aged between seven and nineteen, and the musical offered valuable stage experience for all as well as a challenging musical level. The two harp classes worked on the piece all year, and then had three rehearsals alternately in Bayonne and Cognac.

Studying in...THE NETHERLANDS

Harpblog runs an occasional series of articles about studying in different cities and countries. Thus far, I have written a grand total of one article in the series, about studying in Paris. The idea is to unravel the sometimes idiosyncratically-designed websites of individual conservatoires, and also provide information in English as this is not always easily available. 

That said, today's 'Studying in...' post is about a country where the conservatoire websites are superbly well-organised, and most people speak better English than I do - the Netherlands. As those of you who attended the 2008 World Harp Congress in Amsterdam will have perceived, the Dutch harp scene is of a remarkably high level, with a rare combination of top technical standards plus musical open-mindedness and breadth. Excellent contemporary music, early harp, one of the best orchestras in the world in the form of the Concertgebouw and many great names of the harp world all belong to the Netherlands.  Consider Edward Witsenburg, Erika Waardenburg, Petra van der Heide, Gwyneth Wentink, Lavinia Meijer, Ernestine Stoop, Anton Sie, Miriam Overlach...not to mention Remy van Kesteren and his team, who have put the Dutch Harp Festival firmly on the international map from its very first edition.

 

 

MIDI harp workshop, London, November 23rd 2010

 

The MIDI harp has come a long way from its first prototype!

On Tuesday, November 23rd, Trinity Laban in London is hosting a workshop about the MIDI harp. Jakez, Dominic Murcott and Sioned Williams will present the class, which will take place in the TCM theatre studio between 4 and 6PM.

The MIDI harp will be introduced briefly as an instrument, but we have already done this twice in London now, at the Camac Harp Days 2009, and at the Royal Academy of Music last January. This time, we will therefore focus more on the next level: what artists are now doing with the instrument.

Dominic Murcott, Jakez Francois. Photo: Yvonne White

The artistic collaboration between Jakez and Dominic is now of over a year's standing, and currently explores extended performance-improvisations between MIDI harp and laptop. On Tuesday, they will present "Barnaby's Travels", a work they have developed using not only aural, but also visual triggers.

Sioned Williams. Photo: Yvonne White

Sioned Williams will then demonstrate elements of the world's first concerto for MIDI harp and orchestra, by Graham Fitkin, which she will premier with Andrew Litton and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London on January 26th, 2011.

You will be hearing a lot more about this new concerto over the next couple of months: it looks like it is going to be sensational. In more ways than one: Fitkin's concerto uses MIDI technology to have the harp trigger recordings of politicians' voices, during the time of the Iraq war. The composer writes:

"The ability of this new instrument to play recorded samples or trigger MIDI effects and parameters means that the archetypal Western perspective of the harp and its associated heavenly docility can be turned on its head. Unlimited soundscapes can be created, meaning that careful choices have to be made so that the end result isn't simply a gimmicky glossary of effects.

I wanted to inject a certain brutality and rawness into the music and decided exclusively to use speech sounds, many of them untreated and bare. This brought up the notion of communication, understanding and the human voice. I want the music to hover between abstraction and narrative, to use voices we may recognise and to focus on the rhetorical posturing machismo of modern political life in contrast to that dreamy harp sound we're accustomed to."

Admission to next Tuesday's workshop is free - just turn up.

Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, theatre studio
King Charles Court
Old Royal Naval College
Greenwich
London SE10 9JF
+44 (0)20 8305 4444