It was the 7th competition, in ’07. The 8th will be this year. I suffered along with Maria Krushevskaya the last step of the way. Did you notice, since we were discussing jewelry just recently on this forum, that some were wearing necklaces and/or earrings? Myself, I feel naked without earrings.

Yes, it was nice to see the harp get that kind of exposure.

It was great! I thought it was very thorough, having interviewed contestants, parents, teachers, judges, and even taking a look at the production of the 1st prize harp! Maybe it was the tv or the way they recorded, but didn’t some of the audio seem abrasive? It was a shame, I thought that took away from the experience a little bit. My teacher was approached to be a tracked competitor, but she decided not to compete…

~Sam

I really enjoyed it too. In the last several harp competitions, both in Israel and Bloomington, the winners-who of course all won harps as part of the first prize package-have been harpists who didn’t own their own instrument. The winning prize was the first harp they had ever owned, and I think that is really great.

I’m with you Sam. I thought the sound of the harps playing was kind of harsh. Harp is so difficult to record, and these of course were not studio conditions. The producers did the best they could. But over all, it was a great show, and puts the harp in a new spotlight.

I thought it was fantastic. I loved how much they focused on the preparation for the competition, and how they went into the mind set and mental preparation.

I’ve never been big on music competition in itself, but one of the things that they mentioned several times that kind of helped my change my view a bit is how just the preparation for a competition of this caliber really teaches the harpists a lot and helps prepare them for their futures as professional harpists. Even if they don’t get past the first round all the work never really goes to waste.

Missed the documentary, and no repeats scheduled (so far) but the DVD will be available through the PBS store in early July and will be released through Amazon on August 3rd.

Extra Features Include:

Maria Krushevskaya plays Eugen Onegin (7:34.24);

Building The Prize Harp (9:25.04);

Cheryl’s Harp Needs Repair (3:34.17); and

Selecting a Competition Harp (4:29.10).

I just watched the show on my DVR.

Hi. I am the Executive Producer of this program. I appreciate the interesting and thoughtful comments on this forum. After reading a few postings here I thought it might be helpful if I provided some insight into how this was created.

I live in Bloomington, Indiana where I work for the local PBS affiliate WTIU. I am fortunate enough to work with a very talented producer named Susanne Schwibs. Together we devised an approach to the competition which I then “pitched” to PBS. While PBS was supportive, we did not know until last fall if the show would even air (so your calls and emails of support to PBS are VERY helpful to us for future shows–if PBS knows you are interested in this kind of programming, it makes it easier to convince them that there is an audience for that programming).

Anyway, we shot literally over 100 hours of footage (every single competition performance, including the finals). PBS would only give us a 90 minute “slot” (which was actually generous of them). This meant that we had to choose between long concert performances and “slice of life” content–I think we got the balance right.

The DVD could only be produced on a single disk, so given that the show was 89 minutes long, we could only fit an additional 30 minutes. Believe me choosing what to include was tough. The DVD is for sale now at ShopPBS.org.

But given your interest, we may be able to put some additional clips of performances online in the near future. As it is, the next competition starts in a week–the winners of the 2004 and 2007 competitions are giving free concerts in Bloomington, and at least one of the finalists is back for this year’s competition. Very exciting, indeed.