I remember complaining back when that Orlando was a cultural desert. Not no more.

With particular application to the harp–the local chapter of the American Harp Society is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary and the International Harp Museum is celebrating its fifth. They have gotten together to offer a series of concerts and other harp events.

Some of the collection of the IHM is being shown at the Albin Polasek Museum in Winter Park. Everything from folkloric to ancient to modern harps. (I have a particular love for antique harps.) Polasek created a fountain in which the water ran down the strings of a harp, making that an appropriate venue. At a reception for the exhibit, which runs till mid-April, they featured a model of the harpist statue in chocolate.

The concerts were and are all being held afternoons in a local church near the IHM (followed by snacks in the basement), and they cover a lot of ground–

2/19/12 Park Stickney, classical and jazz harp

2/26/12 Castlebay, Celtic duo, harp and flute/fiddle

3/11/12 Harps in Art, lecture by Roslyn Rensch, at the Winter Park Public Library

3/25/12 Alethia Duo, classical harp and flute

Several more TK, plus the annual Spotlight on Youth recital, in which the winner gets to choose a vintage instrument from the collection to play and wins a scholarship too.

I went to the Park Stickney–everything from Miles Davis to Bach! And Castlebay, an Irish program. Fiddler Fred Gosbee made his wife Julia Lane’s lever harp, a lovely instrument.