Building a school harp program

[kristal-barlaan]

Hello,

I am working on building a harp program at a local private school.
Does anyone know who else is working with schools to build harp programs?

I would love advice.

Thanks

[Misty Harrison]

There is a blog on http://www.harpeducationproject.com. More people should use it because it was formed to do exactly what you need: give advice and ideas about starting a harp program.

[kristal-barlaan]

Thank you for the helpful lead – it looks like it hasn’t been updated since 2007!

Any plans on getting it going again?

[unknown-user]

Hi Kristal,

I’ve worked with private schools before, it depends on what you’re interested in doing.

[kristal-barlaan]

Hello,

The long term plan is to have an entire program that includes group lessons, private lessons, harp ensembles, and harp participating in all the other established ensembles.

The teaching time frame is during school in the morning as well as beginning some after school programs.

There are 3 student already enrolled in the school but I would like to open it up to the Bay Area community so that all young harpist have an opportunity to participate in group learning and ensembles

We have a lady donating harps – last year we had an 85p and a dusty string.

[dawn-penland]

Your program sounds wonderful.

[patricia-jaeger]

Krystal, go to http://www.astaweb.com, the site of American String Teachers Association.(If you choose asta.com instead, you’ll be with the travel agents’ association!) In 2006 a very useful book was published by that organization,

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

One necessity is arranging for course credit or the equivalent both for study and practice time. The students in a serious track should get at least one free period a day for practicing. The most famous school program is at Cass Tech High in Detroit. You could ask Pat Terry-Ross how it works.

Congratulations! Getting harps is the biggest problem.

[kristal-barlaan]

Dawn,
It is delightful to hear how your mother benefited from such a program – i truly hope that such stories will be said of this new one.

[kristal-barlaan]

That is a great idea – I actually got my hands on that book a few months ago.

[kristal-barlaan]

Saul,
Course Credit for practice time sounds like a good idea. I will check with

[Calista Anne Koch]

I don’t know of any private schools that have a similar program, but there is a program in Atl. called the Urban Harp Ensemble that is for inner city public schools.

[Briggsie B. Peawiggle]

I believe they played just outside the exhibit hall and also inside the exhibit hall at the AHS Detroit last summer. If so, they were quite good.

Briggsie

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

Well, maybe you can work something out with the new Chicago harps. I only wish more schools would do the same. Also, make sure the storage is secure.

[Misty Harrison]

There are a lot of harp programs out there but no one really talks about them or publicizes them except a few well-known ones.

There are some in CA, WA, AZ, TX, GA, MI, NJ, WI

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