As we sit in our hotel lobby, surrounded by luggage (and some glasses of wine), it's time to say a huge THANK YOU to all the artists who took part in our film project, and indeed to everyone who performed in and contributed to the organisation of the eleventh World Harp Congress, here in Vancouver. We've had a wonderful time, experiencing such a variety of harp music, making new friends, receiving new ideas and hearing amazing and humbling stories. Harpblog's linear structure means our WHC posts will become "buried" after a while, although of course they do stay available online. You can find all the CamacCam interviews collected together on our YouTube channel, or by clicking on the "World Harp Congress" category in the sidebar of the blog.
I'll leave the last word on CamacCam to Natalia Shameyeva, who gave a magnificent recital which left her audience in tears.
After thirty years, Vancouver was the last World Harp Congress with Susann McDonald as Artistic Director. What an outstanding contribution to the harp world, advising, planning, organising and leading this huge event! And that's in addition to her work as Distinguished Professor at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University, Bloomington, her artistic directorship of the USA International Harp Competition - one of the greatest harp competitions in the world - and a first-class international concert career. She was also one Henriette Renié's last pupils - read her interview with Harpblog, remembering Renié, here.
The new Artistic Director of the World Harp Congress will be another world-class concert artist and teacher: Isabelle Perrin. If you haven't yet heard Isabelle give a masterclass or concert, don't miss the first opportunity that comes your way. You can find details of her busy international schedule, which includes many masterclasses and courses, on her website.
George Flores has some T-shirts stating the healing power of harps - and the harp community, which inspired him to fight against medical expectations, build up his fitness to levels no doctor foresaw, and start working again. There was also an interesting harp therapy stand at the WHC. Sunita Staneslow, from Israel, also has an extensive harp therapy project, with a Melusine specially purchased for use in hospitals in Jerusalem. She talks to CamacCam about this, and also about organising the upcoming first Israeli harp festival.
In general, filming CamacCam went smoothly. The lights worked, the mic worked, the camera worked, the batteries didn't run out. But - the interview with harp technician George Flores is lost. I have no idea what happened, but it's not on the camera any more, and I could not import it. It's almost certainly my fault. OF ALL INTERVIEWS. It is SUCH a shame, because George's story is an incredible and inspiring one.
In 2004, George suffered a motorcycle accident that left him paralysed from the waist down. You can read an account of what happened here (this is an article from 2008 - George is now back at work). Against all the odds, with enormous dedication and courage, George is no longer bed-ridden. Quite the reverse: he has returned to work as a harp technician, equipped with a special standing wheelchair that allows him to reach the top of the harp (pictured on George's facebook page, here). "People say 'why don't you just lay the harp on its side?' ", George explained to me. "But to do a professional job on the column rods, the harp needs to be standing up. And I am a professional, and I was not prepared to do a less than professional job because of my accident."
George has recently built a harp, which he'll be auctioning soon to raise money for Adult Stem Cell Research. You can find pictures of him building the harp here, and follow his Facebook page for details of when the auction will be.
Staying physically fit is essential for all musicians. In Vancouver, the programme included - for example - a discussion of how to prevent injury through a good hand position and relaxed playing. It also included a session by Danielle Perrett on yoga and pilates for harpists. Danielle describes her study of these disciplines on her website:
"After overcoming a severe wrist problem whilst at university which threatened her harp playing career, Danielle has had a strong interest in healthy playing and the avoidance of unwanted tension in performance.
To this end she studied Alexander Technique for many years, followed by Pilates. To further her understanding, she qualified as a Pilates teacher, also holding a qualification in teaching yoga.
She has since taught Pilates to musicians and non-musicians, has taken classes of musicians on her travels and routinely incorporates aspects of Pilates and good posture in her teaching and masterclasses.
Danielle is writing a e-book on Pilates for Harpists, which will be available soon: more details here."
Here's another thing that's interesting for Europeans about having the World Harp Congress this side of the Atlantic: more contact than usual with the Salzedo school of harp playing. CamacCam got talking to Lynne Abbey-Lee, one of the many American professionals who studied this technique - studied with the legendary Alice Chalifoux, in fact.
This WHC has also had plenty of ideas regarding harp ensemble repertoire, from Mahalia Kelz's very successful ragtime arrangements for harp trio, to the final performance of the entire congress: Dream, Light, Movement for four harps and orchestra by Bozidar Obradinovic, performed in Vancouver by the Belgrade Harp Quartet. And Lynne herself has done a lot of harp quartet arrangements, which you can also hear about on CamacCam!
When I was seven months pregnant, all I did was sit around eating crisps, and whinge about how tired I was. Florence Sitruk, in contrast, has flown half-way round the world, performed a lecture-recital about the source manuscripts of the Hindemith Sonate, given a masterclass, played in the memorial concert for her dear friend Ceren Necipoğlu, and put in a bid to organise a subsequent World Harp Congress in Berlin. And she's having twins! I think she's amazing.
If you're going to make a sweeping generalisation, you may as well be properly big-fluffy-carpet-sweeping, so: maybe Canadian and North American harpists are more business-savvy than those of us on the other side of the pond. Certainly there is more focus on self-promotion, and running yourself, the freelance musician, like a business, efficiently and effectively. In Vancouver, we have been offered lectures on "using amplification to susbtantially increase income" (Stephen Vardy, Monday July 25th), and "financial independence for harpists: managing income, budgeting, saving, when and what to finance, responsible use of credit, and basic tax information" (Jan Jennings, Tuesday July 26th). I have seen these sorts of lectures in Britain (which is influenced by the States regarding the position of freelance musicians, to an extent), but I don't know - for example - of a single conservatoire in Germany to date that has any formal professional development centre / career planning services.
Even in Germany, land of over two hundred professional orchestras, times are a-changing. Globally, 99.9% of young music graduates can forget about anything resembling a salaried job. That doesn't stop you having a great life, but it does mean you will have a freelance one - where you create your work yourself.
Felice Pomeranz is professor of harp at Berklee College in Boston, where she has created a course that will turn you into a versatile, business-aware, fit-for-freelancing musician. Hear all about it now on CamacCam!
If that whets your appetite to find out more about life as a harpist on this side of the Atlantic, Felice also talks about the fortieth national conference of the American Harp Society, of which she is the Artistic Director. It will take place in New York City (Times Square, no less), between June 30th - July 3rd, 2012.
A key figure in the history of the World Harp Congress is Dean Sherman (1916 - 2005). Rather than being a harpist in the first instance, Dean pursued a life of voluntary work in the fields of education and fine arts in her native America. For example, she founded the Foreign Languages in Elementary Schools programme in the mid-1950s, a project she continued to direct until 1976. She received the Hornbook Award for distinguished contribution to public education, and the Palmes Academiques from the French government for her work promoting French language education. She served on many boards and committees, including the World Harp Congress: a founding member, she was Executive Director and Vice-President for more than twenty years.
Dean Sherman was also a close friend of the Israeli composer Haim Permont. She commissioned two harp concertos from him: Niggun II for Harp and String Orchestra (1996), in memory of Phia Berghout, and Music for Two Harps, Strings, Percussion and Celesta (2001). She also commissioned the work of which Alexandre Bonnet, together with mezzo-soprano Caroline Markos, gave the world premiere today at the World Harp Congress: "Songs of Love and Remembrance" (2011), a song cycle setting poems by Emily Dickinson, Anna Hempstead Branch, Martha Gilbert Dickinson, and Arthur O'Shaughnessy. Alexandre has edited this work, which will soon be published by the Israel Music Institute.
