The woman who convinced King Charles, then-Prince of Wales, to reinstate the position of royal harpist after a century-long gap is aiming to inspire a new generation to play the instrument. Harpist Elinor Bennett is going on a 12-stop Wales-wide tour, The Dwylo ar Dannau’r Delyn (Hands on Harp Strings). Bennett also serves as the Artistic Director of the Wales International Harp Festival. She says, “I have heard that fewer children and young people are taking up the harp and the tour will create an interest in the harp and raise awareness of the festival itself,” she says. Tickets for the tour are available online and at some local shops, but will also be available at the door.
The tour follows a launch concert for the festival at Bangor University’s Prichard-Jones Hall. Bennett describes her plan for each event. “At each location on the tour I will be joined by either a former pupil or someone I have worked with in the past. We hope local harp tutors and teachers will bring their pupils along. Each event will last for about four hours and at the start there will be workshops and master classes where the youngsters can play together and then some solos. To close the event there will be a concert where I will play along with the guest tutor and perhaps with some of the youngsters if they wish. The concerts, of course, will be open to the public. And there will also be an exhibition of harps by the Vining company from Cardiff. They sell Camac instruments and are sponsoring the festival.”
The concerts, masterclasses and workshops will take Bennett to places where she has close personal connections. Starting at Bangor on October 23, the tour will visit Pwllheli, Llangefni, Llanrwst, Swansea, Barry, and Denbigh. Bennett will also stop at Llangadfan in Powys where she has close family links, and Aberystwyth where she studied for a law degree at the town’s university. She will also visit Swansea, Barry, Crymych in Pembrokeshire along with Merthyr Tydfil where she once lived, and Llanuwchllyn near Bala where she spent a large portion of her childhood.
As well as re-igniting interest in harp music following the COVID pandemic, the aim is to promote the fifth Wales International Harp Festival which will be staged at Galeri Caernarfon from April 5–11, 2023. Next year’s festival will bring together leading exponents of the instrument from around the world to Galeri Caernarfon. Organized by Canolfan Gerdd William Mathias (Music Centre), it will feature concerts, masterclasses, workshops, and lecture recitals. Performers include Colombian harpist Edmar Castañeda, French harpist Isabelle Moretti, and American jazz harpist Deborah Henson-Conant.
The festival commission is a new work, Llechi (Slate), by harpist and composer Math Roberts, with poetry by Wales’ National Poet, Ifor ap Glyn. The work, written for a chamber ensemble and vocal soloists, will celebrate the unique culture of the slate-mining areas of Gwynedd, recently awarded World Heritage Status by UNESCO.
In addition, the festival includes four competitions, with the aim of giving children and older harpists a platform to perform, receive comments from internationally esteemed harpists, and make friends with young musicians from other parts of the world. “Participants in each of the categories in the four competitions are encouraged to create their own choice of programmes and include one or two items listed in the published syllabus. In the youth and children competitions, equal scholarships will be awarded for the three top performances, to help talented young harpists to receive continuing expert tuition,” Bennett says. Applications for these competitions are due January 2, 2023.
Bennett will be stepping down as the festival’s Artistic Director after next year’s event.
Further details about the tour, the festival, and the competitions are available on the festival website.
Bennett’s role in re-establishing the important position of royal harpist was part of her long journey as a Welsh harpist building her career. Bennett says that when she started learning to play the harp in 1954, there were very few harpists. She was born at Llanidloes in the former county of Montgomeryshire, and her family later moved to Llanuwchllyn near Bala in Merionethshire.
Her father bought her first harp when she was just seven years of age, though she did not begin lessons for another four years as her legs were not long enough to reach the pedals. Bennett shares, “My father was very musical, as were my mother and grandfather. After we moved to Llanuwchllyn my father joined Côr Godre’r Aran [a Welsh male-voice choir]. In 1949 they went to London to sing at the Dorchester Hotel, and while in the city he bought a harp for £30 and brought it back to Llanuwchllyn on the [London] Underground and the train.”
After leaving school, Bennett studied law at Aberystwyth, but later applied for and won a scholarship to attend the Royal Academy of Music in London, studying with Osian Ellis, the acclaimed Flintshire-born harpist. After graduating she played with numerous orchestras at home and abroad. Though known mostly for classical music she has also played with some of Wales’ most renowned rock musicians. She has recorded twelve solo albums and founded the Coleg Telyn Cymru (Harp College of Wales) and helped set up Canolfan Gerdd William Mathias Music Centre in Caernarfon.
Finding herself seated next to the then-Prince of Wales at a dinner, she told him of the tradition of a Royal Harpist, which had not been filled for more than a century. “He was interested and asked me to send him a proposal which I duly did. That led to the revival of the tradition with the first being Catrin Finch in 2000,” Bennett says.
