The USA International Harp Competition (USAIHC) announces the appointment of its new Artistic Director Elizabeth Hainen and Associate Artistic Director Emmanuel Ceysson. Since founding the USAIHC in 1989, Susann McDonald has served as its Artistic Director. She will now become the Artistic Director Emeritus. Linda Wood Rollo will be Associate Artistic Director Emeritus. The USAIHC says of McDonald and Wood Rollo, “Their dedication and leadership over the past 35 years is unparalleled… The board of directors express their deep appreciation for their contributions to this organization and the international harp world.”
Hainen won the silver medal in the inaugural USAIHC in 1989 and is the principal harpist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Hainen holds the Maryjane Mayhew Barton Chair in Harp Studies for the Curtis Institute of Music and also serves as Artistic Director for Harp at Boyer School of Music, Temple University.
Gold medalist at the 6th USAIHC in 2004, Ceysson is the principal harpist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He leads harp studios at the New York Mannes School of Music and San Francisco Conservatory, and is currently a visiting professor at the London Royal Academy of Music and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland.
The next USAIHC will take place in the summer of 2025 in Bloomington, Ind., and is open to harpists of all nationalities between the ages of 18 and 32 as of May 15, 2025.
For more information, visit the USAIHC’s website.
