Rhodri Davies is performing the distinguished avant-garde composer Elaine Radigue's Occam I for solo harp on February 23rd at Beursschouwburg in Brussels (8:30 PM). Saxophonist John Butcher will then perform his own solo work, The Geometry of Sentiment, before he and Rhodri conclude the evening with a duo improvisation. For more details, click here.
Rhodri gave the world premiere of Radigue's composition in the summer of last year, at the Spitalfields Festival in London. One reviewer writes: "His journey up the harp, sounding out octaves, fifths and minor seconds with his two bows, unchained the hidden harmonics of these notes, the upper partials, and allowed them to engage in a most mesmerising celestial dance above our heads, a sort of musical aurora borealis..." .
Rhodri Davies. Photo: Alexis O'Hara
Marcella Carboni and Elisabetta Antonini have released a great new harp + vocals album, in jazz style: 'Nuance'. Find out more in their press release, below!
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.
The second Dutch Harp Festival will soon take place in Utrecht, between March 27th and April 1st. As with the festival's first edition in 2010, it offers a dynamic concert programme, a high-level international competition, excellent communications and some really nice, innovative touches. One such touch is March 27th's evening concert: Real Men Play The Harp. Emmanuel Ceysson, Remy van Kesteren and Andreas Mildner will perform harp concertos by Renié, Schaffer and van Oosten with the Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht, conducted by Johannes Leertouwer. The concert's title says it all: musically and visually, the idea is to blow apart some of the strongest stereotypes that hang like a millstone around the harp's gilded neck.
The festival has devised a very clever, creative way of appealing for sponsors of this concert. It has constructed a scale of sponsorship, and offers something in return for your help - from tickets to concerts and masterclasses during the festival, to a private lesson with Petra van der Heide or an exclusive recital by festival artistic director Remy himself. Find out more on the Real Men Play The Harp project page.
Incentive sponsorship's a fine idea - why not offer people kind enough to sponsor you something in return? - and this is a great example of it. The rewards are attractive; the financial scale is realistic, starting at €10 (prizes from €25). Like funding platforms like Kickstarter, the sponsorship project has a time-limit: there are thirty-seven days left to reach the target of €12,500. If 200 people donate €50, they'll reach their goal. If you would like to make a donation, you can do so here.
(P.S: yes, we have sponsored it!)
Many thanks to Peter Reis, of Harps International, for sharing this with us!
Many of you will be familiar with Salzedo's brilliant arrangement of Ravel's piano Sonatine, for flute, harp and cello - an arrangement so brilliant that when Ravel heard it, famously he said "why didn't I think of that?".
This arrangement, which Salzedo called Sonatine en Trio, can also be used by viola instead of cello - but now violists have their very own new arrangement, from Skaila Kanga, and published by Maruka Music:
Maruka Music
21 Lower Road,
Chorleywood,
Herts. WD3 5LQ
UK
skaila.kanga@btinternet.com
This arrangement was first written in 1993 for the Nash Ensemble of London, and premiered at the Wigmore Hall the following year. Henri Dutilleux spoke of it as “comme l’originale!” after a performance at his birthday concert.
Skaila Kanga
It is now being released in limited edition, with score and parts in a special folder. You can, of course, order it from Camac's online boutique!
Here are some photos from the second part of the launch party for La Casa del Arpa. Camac Ibérica is our new partner for Spain and also Portugal, and it was great to find that two students from Portugal had made the long journey to play in the masterclass with Isabelle Moretti. A huge thank-you to Isabelle for her wisdom and her time, and well done Sophie Steiner (Austria), Selma Garcia (Spain), Juan Antonia Garcia Diaz (Spain), Catarina Rebelo (Portugal) and Ana Aroso (Portugal)! Many thanks, also, to Nuria Llopis for being our wonderful interpreter throughout the masterclass.
As I said in my last post, we are also hugely proud of Alex: no detail was too much trouble, and his organisation and planning assured the great success of the weekend. He even gave me a ride on his motorbike, which is one of the most exciting things to have happened to me for ages.
Waiting for it all to begin - every chair in the store was brought downstairs, including the practice room sofa
Pierné's Impromptu-Caprice
And some Nadermann
La Casa del Arpa is only a few minutes' walk away from most of Madrid's most beautiful landmarks, including the Almudena cathedral pictured above.
Here in Madrid, Camac Ibérica's launch is underway! Last night, we heard a wonderful, sell-out concert by Marie Normant, Boris Grelier and Isabelle Moretti. Marie and Boris performed some of the best repertoire the flute and harp combination has to offer, with great temperament and flair - if you think flute and harp is boring, look no further than this duo for a swift revision of opinion. From the wistful, et in Arcadia-quality of Jean Cras's Suite en Duo, to the kaleidoscope of feeling that is Piazzolla's Histoire Du Tango and the Romantic plasticity of the Saint-Saëns Fantasie Op. 124, we didn't want the first half to end. We were, however, soon comforted by the arrival of the second half. Isabelle Moretti received a standing ovation for her stunning programme, the first concert on her new harp, and featuring the first performance of her transciption of Debussy's Suite Bergamasque. When Isabelle's first notes rang out, I wondered if I had died and gone, against all the odds, to heaven. I was not the only one asking themselves this question: had it been true, St Peter would have had a busy night. Whatever happens in the afterlife, in the here and now, one thing is sure. It is not always easy to be a musician, but when you experience such music, you remember why you are doing it, what makes it all worthwhile.
The concert was followed by a drinks reception at the Camac Ibérica store. "I'm on the list...Jakez, he knows me" I squeaked, as I tried to get through the door. Finally inside, it was great to find a party in full swing, that went on well into the small hours. It's just as well Spanish time runs later than in the chilly North. Isabelle's masterclass will begin today at 4PM, and we're now all up, bright-eyed and off for some tapas before it begins.
We are really proud of Alexander Granados, who has worked tirelessly to prepare the showroom and organise the event. It has also been brilliant that so many Spanish harpists made time to attend - muchas gracias to you all!
Continue reading for last night's photos!
Continue reading "Camac Ibérica launch celebrations - first day!" »
