The Italian Harp Association has announced the winners of its First International Competition of Harp Composition “Daniele Garella,” which the association organized in collaboration with the Omraam Foundation ETS and the Stella Mattutina Publishing House.
Arianna Ferrara Gennari won first prize and will receive a scholarship of €1000 as well as an invitation to participate in the National Symposium “The Harp in Italy,” which will take place in Milan at the Salvi Harps showroom on April 18, 2026. Her piece L’Incantesimo di Dagda (The Enchantment of Dagda) will be published by Stella Mattutina and included in the required repertoire for the 15th International Harp Contest in Italy Suoni d’Arpa. The performance of the piece will then also be published on the Italian Harp Association’s YouTube channel, curated by Tactus.
The jury and the publishing house decided to additionally publish the following pieces submitted to the competition: Alba in Piedmont by Motoshi Kosako, Ed era la vita by Agatha Bocedi, and Chi sono? by Jamaal Kashim. The jury included Carlo Belli, president of the Omraam Foundation ETS; Giuseppe Monari, artistic director of Tactus; and harpists Maria Elena Bovio, Marcella Carboni, Emanuela Degli Esposti, Lorenzo Montenz, Raoul Moretti, Nicoletta Sanzin, and Sara Simari.
Gennari says as she began to listen to Garella’s music to create her own work for the competition, she noticed surprising similarities between her style and his. “I soon realized that this closeness was not just coincidental but rooted in a shared artistic intention—the desire to restore to music its ancient role as a spiritual remedy,” she says. “Dagda, a deity from Irish mythology, represents for me a perfect synthesis between Orpheus and Jupiter: his harp governs the flow of the seasons as though they were movements of a symphony, yet above all [the harp allows communion with universal emotions through the] three sacred modes of music: Goltrai, the music that evokes weeping and sorrow; Geantrai, the music that stirs laughter and love, and Suantrai, the music that induces sleep and peace.” Through the competition, Gennari encountered a passage from Garella’s novel Jordan Viach the Cathar, which she says seemed to presciently capture the atmosphere of her winning piece. “In those lines, [Garella] describes Jupiter’s harp, played by the wind and the sea breeze, unfolding a symphony scattered across infinite echoes,” Gennari says.
Gennari describes herself as a composer, harpist, and performer who specializes in the creation of film scores and devotes her work to exploring new forms of musical storytelling, intertwining music with theater, and participating in innovative cultural projects. She says that her work aims to “transform narrative visions into complete and engaging sound works, balancing tradition and modernity through an approach centered on dialogue between different artistic languages.” She holds a master’s degree in film music composition summa cum laude and a diploma in harp from the Giovanni Battista Martini Conservatory of Bologna, and is a graduate of the F. Arcangeli Art High School, where she was later appointed as a tutor. Learn more on the Italian Harp Association’s website.
According to the Italian Harp Association, this competition aims to promote music for the harp and is dedicated to the late Florentine composer Daniele Garella, honoring his contribution to Italian music and his longtime support for the association.
