It's great when you get to play some enjoyable music with good friends.... which is certainly the case working with Eleanor Hudson!
En and I have worked together in the RLPO for years, and we also both love arranging, so the duo is a good excuse to play new arrangements of music we enjoy.
We have a concert coming up on the Friday 7th June in Macclesfield (details here), and we'll be playing lots of our own arrangements from Bach to Piazolla to a Frank Sinatra medley!
Life is too short not to have some fun ;-)
Thursday, 2 May 2013
Friday, 26 April 2013
Foden's project
Exciting news..... my duo with soprano Anna-Clare Monk will be part of a collaborative project with Foden's Brass Band, Andy Scott and poet Lemn Sissay which will be performing at the South Bank and at the Commonwealth Games next year...
from a press release by Foden's...
from a press release by Foden's...
"Foden's are pleased to announce that they have been awarded funding to commission a new work by the PRS for Music Foundation’s New Music Biennial. The highly prestigious and high profile scheme will present a series of commissioned works from British composers across the UK in 2014, as Scotland prepares to celebrate the Commonwealth Games.
Organisations from all over the country were invited to submit ideas for commissions, and Foden’s Band made the successful application for a new work by their composer in residence Andy Scott and leading poet Lemn Sissay. Andy and Lemn have undertaken successful collaborations in the past, including the iconic My Mountain Top, which has proved to be one of Andy’s most evocative and widely acclaimed works.
The new commission will be premiered in the North West in 2014 and will feature in a hour long programme of works by Andy Scott and Lemn Sissay that will feature Foden's, Lemn, harpist Lauren Scott and soprano Anna-Clare Monk on stage (Anna-Clare and Lauren recently set some of Lemn’s poetry to Andy’s music to create several new songs). It is hoped that a DVD of the project will also be produced." more here
I'm really looking forward to working with Foden's, they are a great band!
I've just finished editing a couple of new videos with Anna-Clare from a concert we did recently. As it's Britten's centenary year, here are a couple of Britten songs. Not the usual harp ones!
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
That's what I call a dead harp
Some will go "wow" and some will cry.....
Me; I'm in the crying camp. All I see is a lovely Erard covered in black gloss paint ;-(
I'm presuming like the dead parrot, it was a late Erard with no hope of resurrection.......
Me; I'm in the crying camp. All I see is a lovely Erard covered in black gloss paint ;-(
Fibre Optic Harp, designed by Craig jones "Light can be set to change colour when a pedal is pressed. Craig Jones says "The concept was to combine a traditional object with new technology and create a product which redefined its component parts and questioned their use within a contemporary setting." Find out more at www.craigjonesdesign.com
I'm presuming like the dead parrot, it was a late Erard with no hope of resurrection.......
If you are a sad harp fanatic like me, and the sight of that ex-harp makes you glum, here's a picture of a lovely Erard to cheer you up that will soon be available from harp restorer Michael Parfett's studios.
Alex Rider and Sir Arnold Bax
A fascinating talk by Alex Rider for the UKHA about Sir Arnold Bax, the chamber music he wrote for harp, and the pioneering English harpists who premiered his works.
It is really interesting to hear about the harpists who were working in London in the early 1900's and were at the cutting edge of music of that time, and also playing on the latest instruments of the day (Erards and the very early Lyon and Healy's).
This 1 hour lecture is brilliantly researched and presented by Alex Rider, and is divided into 8 seperate videos on YouTube. Included in one video is a clip from the very first audio recording of Ravel's Introduction and Allegro conducted by the composer himself, and the very shockingly fast speed the Allegro was taken at. It wasn't a case of the music being speeded up to fit onto the limited time of the early records, the Allegro is the speed the composer wanted!
The English harpists discussed in the lecture include Miriam Timothy, Sidonie Goosens, Gwendolen Mason and Maria Korchinska.
Highly recommended viewing
It is really interesting to hear about the harpists who were working in London in the early 1900's and were at the cutting edge of music of that time, and also playing on the latest instruments of the day (Erards and the very early Lyon and Healy's).
This 1 hour lecture is brilliantly researched and presented by Alex Rider, and is divided into 8 seperate videos on YouTube. Included in one video is a clip from the very first audio recording of Ravel's Introduction and Allegro conducted by the composer himself, and the very shockingly fast speed the Allegro was taken at. It wasn't a case of the music being speeded up to fit onto the limited time of the early records, the Allegro is the speed the composer wanted!
The English harpists discussed in the lecture include Miriam Timothy, Sidonie Goosens, Gwendolen Mason and Maria Korchinska.
Highly recommended viewing
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
Lara Somogyi Kickstarter
Nice little Kickstarter project by Lara Somogyi - I think Kickstarter is such a good idea. It's not easy to get funding for projects so it's good to see harpists getting out there and creating and finding innovative ways of funding it.
Harp and loops.... what's not to love about this project!
Wednesday, 13 March 2013
Alexander Technique
My last post got me thinking about posture and harp playing and teaching.
I was lucky enough to have regular Alexander Technique lessons for 2 years when I was a teenager, so I have grown up with the need for correct posture being ingrained in me.
I try to make sure that good posture is a fundamental part of my teaching and my students probably get fed up with me going on about it all the time!
It's pretty common place now for Alexander technique to be offered as part of a harp course and there are lots of links on the web, and also lots of harpists who have trained in Alexander Technique. I recently found this brilliant short article by Coralie Cousins who takes a regular class at the Paris Conservatoire for Isabelle Perrin. Beautifully illustrated with lovely drawings, it's certainly a good reminder of why correct posture when playing the harp is so important.
I was lucky enough to have regular Alexander Technique lessons for 2 years when I was a teenager, so I have grown up with the need for correct posture being ingrained in me.
I try to make sure that good posture is a fundamental part of my teaching and my students probably get fed up with me going on about it all the time!
Saturday, 23 February 2013
Child prodigies
The Debussy Dances as a harp duo performed by Alexander Andrushchenko (13 years old) and Alisa Sadikova (9 years old) - May 2012, Düsseldorf, Germany
Regular YouTube harp viewers will have seen videos of Alexander performing since a very young age. A quick internet search shows that Alisa is a cousin of Alexander.
Alisa has extensions on the pedals of her harp as she is too small to reach the pedals. Most of the early videos of Alexander show him playing a concert harp with the same pedal extensions.
I can't imagine how hard it must be to play the pedals using those extensions, she does an excellent job considering how chromatic this piece is.
It is truly extraordinary to watch, a difficult and demanding piece for any professional to play.
But then my feelings as a mother kick in and I've got be honest, I don't know want to think.
My golden rule with teaching children has always been that they should start with a small lever harp and only move up to a concert harp when their feet can comfortably reach the pedals.
I remember when my son was very young he wanted to copy me and when I was out of the room he sat on my harp stool and pulled my concert harp back towards him to play. Luckily the harp (knee block) hit the window ledge which stopped it falling completely on top of him. He landed in a mess on the floor, but at least he wasn't squashed and injured by the harp falling on top of him. A full size concert harp is a damn heavy piece of kit.
But I digress.
The playing by the duo is truly amazing.
But I also find it difficult when I know the sheer physicality needed to play such a large instrument. If you need pedal extensions to play should you be playing a full size harp? A lot of comments on their YouTube site seem to find their size in relation to their harps as cute, but I then come back to how physically tired I can sometimes get when I play for long periods, and my harp is in proportion for my size.
But if a child has a passion to play, then .......
Regular YouTube harp viewers will have seen videos of Alexander performing since a very young age. A quick internet search shows that Alisa is a cousin of Alexander.
Alisa has extensions on the pedals of her harp as she is too small to reach the pedals. Most of the early videos of Alexander show him playing a concert harp with the same pedal extensions.
I can't imagine how hard it must be to play the pedals using those extensions, she does an excellent job considering how chromatic this piece is.
It is truly extraordinary to watch, a difficult and demanding piece for any professional to play.
But then my feelings as a mother kick in and I've got be honest, I don't know want to think.
My golden rule with teaching children has always been that they should start with a small lever harp and only move up to a concert harp when their feet can comfortably reach the pedals.
I remember when my son was very young he wanted to copy me and when I was out of the room he sat on my harp stool and pulled my concert harp back towards him to play. Luckily the harp (knee block) hit the window ledge which stopped it falling completely on top of him. He landed in a mess on the floor, but at least he wasn't squashed and injured by the harp falling on top of him. A full size concert harp is a damn heavy piece of kit.
But I digress.
The playing by the duo is truly amazing.
But I also find it difficult when I know the sheer physicality needed to play such a large instrument. If you need pedal extensions to play should you be playing a full size harp? A lot of comments on their YouTube site seem to find their size in relation to their harps as cute, but I then come back to how physically tired I can sometimes get when I play for long periods, and my harp is in proportion for my size.
But if a child has a passion to play, then .......
Friday, 22 February 2013
Free sheet music to download
Bravo to Morley Harps for making available free downloads of music from their historic Clive Morley harp collection. link here
Lots of interesting music free to download, and for those wanting to practice those valuable sight-reading skills there is now no excuse not to!
Obviously if you can sightread Parish-Alvars you don't need to practice sight-reading, but certainly lots of early classical music that can be used, even if only it is hands separately.
They also have PDFs of historical documents from their collection..... gems include a hand written list of concert programmes 1822-1829, a letter from Wilhelm Posse to JG Morley on the purchase of a harp, and instructions on how to play the Harp Guitar and Apollo-Lyre.
Happy historical harp browsing!
Lots of interesting music free to download, and for those wanting to practice those valuable sight-reading skills there is now no excuse not to!
Obviously if you can sightread Parish-Alvars you don't need to practice sight-reading, but certainly lots of early classical music that can be used, even if only it is hands separately.
They also have PDFs of historical documents from their collection..... gems include a hand written list of concert programmes 1822-1829, a letter from Wilhelm Posse to JG Morley on the purchase of a harp, and instructions on how to play the Harp Guitar and Apollo-Lyre.
Happy historical harp browsing!
The Morley workshop in the 1890s.
Tuesday, 12 February 2013
Across the Universe
Lovely version of Across the Universe by The Beatles by Josie Rose Duncan - vocals and clarsach
Sunday, 10 February 2013
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