Tapestry

Paul Mitchell-Davidson's epic suite for mandolin and harp is now on soundcloud.

It's a real journey of a piece and I remember after one live performance a member of the audience came up to me and said, "I've never been to a classical music concert before... that last piece was like surfing a wave!"

Dance of Limewood, Smile of Ash is very still and etheral with astonishing harmonies.

A Joy of Wild Asses is my personal favourite, quirky and pretty manic.

Harvest of the Quiet Eye is a beautiful "folky" and evocative piece.

A Full Moon Rising Red is a real whirlygig epic, full of spirit & feverish dances and is the piece which inspired the "surfing" quote above.

Tapestry by Paul Mitchell-Davidson
Alison Stephens - mandolin
Lauren Scott - harp

Silent Night

A brilliant gliss-tastic arrangement of Silent Night by Graham Fitkin, beautifully played by Ruth Wall and available on her new CD, The Three Harps of Christmas available from this link.

Carols re-arranged by Graham for concert harp, bray harp and Gaelic wire strung harp.



I bet the harpists out there will be trying to figure out the pedal settings for all the gliss chords after listening to this!!!

Little Big not Blue

I have a new harp!!! I finally finished paying off for my Salvi Iris, so I thought it was a good time to take the plunge and take out another loan whilst I still could and get this lovely harp... a Camac Little Big Blue.


It's an electro-accoustic harp and I'm really delighted with it. The acoustic sound is much better than I thought it would be, and it's perfectly usable as an instrument as it is without any amplification. I'm still getting used to the pedals as they feel very different from my Salvi, and of course the string spacing at the top is also different. But after a couple of weeks of playing I'm not finding it too difficult to go between playing this and my Salvi.

I particularly went for the smaller model - only 44 strings, as I wanted a smaller harp which was easy to move about. I really didn't want to take a blue coloured harp out on a gig, as I didn't want it to look any different from a normal acoustic harp, so I ordered a maple one. I've also bought a small battery powered Roland amp; more about the amp in another post.

I haven't had a chance to play around with loop pedals yet, but will do when work calms down a bit and I have some time to experiment.

However, I have used it already on a couple of weddings and it's been absolutely brilliant. It's so much lighter to move around, it really makes a huge difference. Using the amp has taken a little bit of getting used to, as I'm just not used to being able to simply turn a switch to turn the volume up. It still feels a little bit alien to play at a normal level and the extra sound coming out of the amp a distance away from the harp. But that's just a basic thing I need to get used to having only ever played acoustic instruments my entire playing career!

The major benefit was that I found it was so much easier when playing for long periods of time, and I definitely felt physically less tired.

Viva la revolution!

Camac - Little Big Blue (in maple finish!)

A pick up on every string

Where you plug in the lead

UKHA 50th Anniversary concert

It's been a busy old week and a very enjoyable one! In between some freelance work in Birmingham, I managed to fit in a trip to London to see Sioned Williams performing at the Purcell Room. It was a fantastic concert, brilliantly conceived and performed and it was very well received by the near capacity audience.

The concert was put on by the Park Lane Group and was also part of the UKHA 50th birthday celebrations. And what a fantastic turn out by harpists from across the country who came to the concert. Playing the harp can be a solitary affair and it's not often we get the chance to all meet up, so it was lovely to meet up with so many harpists. I met some harp friends that I hadn't seen for nearly 20 years!!

It's been 18 months now since I became Chair of the UKHA and I was really pleased to meet so many young harpists at the concert. There is a real sense of a new generation of younger harpists coming through and being active in the UKHA, which bodes well for any organisation going into it's 50th year. For any organisation to have 80% of the committee being made up of people in their 20s and 30s is quite remarkable.

We have a new bursary scheme which is being launched in January, and we hope to be present at more harp events across the UK in the coming year.

Belonging to the UKHA is a fantastic way for harpists in the UK to connect with other players, whether they are a student, amateur, professional or harp maker. If you love the harp, join the UKHA and network with other harpists across the UK.

Setting up the UKHA table in the foyer of the Purcell Room before the audience arrived ;-)

Bartok concerto for orchestra

I've just been practicing two lots of recital music I have coming up with flautist Clare Southworth and my trio Caliente, when I had a niggly feeling I really should be looking at some music for orchestral work I have in a couple of weeks with the CBSO.

 I'm very glad I've dug it out! I do think this has to be one of the hardest second harp parts out there.

There aren't that many notes to play, but every passage has it's scary moments when you play it in the orchestra.

Especially the ones that look like they should be easy on paper.

Last time I played this was with the RLPO and the conductor took off like a rocket for the last section. I nearly had a heart attack!

Hark, a Lark

I've finally got round to sorting out finishing off some demo recordings with my fantastic singing partner, Anna-Clare Monk.

What a voice!



We are working on some new recital programmes at the moment which is great, you can't beat a really lovely song. It's so good to be working with a singer, especially one as fabulous as Anna-Clare.

Next up on the to-do list, getting some more gigs... I really need a P.A

Spiral of Discovery and Adventure

If you are in London next month, Tuesday October 14th, do go and see this concert at the Southbank Centre featuring Sioned Williams playing 6 new pieces by English composers.

A concert put on by the Park Lane Group, it also celebrates the 50th anniversary of the United Kingdom Harp Association of whom Sioned is president.

You can book tickets here and it will be great opportunity to meet up with harp friends old and new!

have harp, will travel

A harp you can pack in your suitcase?

What a great idea for keeping your fingers in shape whilst away on holiday!

I love the way it fits in the suitcase, although that does look like a pretty big suitcase.

Pretty nifty travel harp made by Don Peddle of randomsound music in Canada and it sounds ok as well.

Delta Harp

This looks extremely cool - a new electric harp which has a bridge and more bass end - so a cross between bass guitar and harp? These are really going to take off.



Unfortunately not much in the way of videos on the internet at the moment which showcase the possibilities of what you can do with it, with slides and bending notes, but no doubt there will be soon. I really like the way you can wear it like a guitar as well as a harp.

Very cool photos of Remy van Kesteren playing one on the Delta Harps Facebook page

psychedelic harp & mushrooms

A fantastic video from Erin Hill, with some pretty awesome production!

Erin and her psychedelic harp, (otherwise known as a black Big Blue Camac harp) has made this video as result of crowd funding through Kickstarter and has a new funding scheme to make more videos through a tax-deductible scheme in the US. 



I hope she gets to do more videos from her album as they are great songs and she also has the funkiest of CD cover designs, which is available to purchase here

Come on British Government, why don't we have tax-deductible schemes for sponsoring the arts here in the UK?