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Hi, I have now put the clips up on my YouTube site so you can see Gareth playing there. It was such great fun! http://youtu.be/AzT-9i2HnV8
Sorry that you could not see at the ITV web site if you were outside the UK!
Happy Harping, Ben
Thanks for the mention of Creighton’s Collection. As well as Natalie’s solo version there are also Quartet versions she plays in with “Quatuor Harpege”
Welsh harpist Eleri Darkins also has the suite on her CD Hiraeth. My son Benjamin recorded Harpicide at Midnight for a Children’s TV programme “Take a Bow” part of which is on YouTube http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fQyZPKzoLbw
Dear Paul,
You sent an e-mail to Benjamin about Pilgrim Pedal Harps – we have tried to reply but our e-mail was returned by your servers!
Benjamin’s first harp was a Pilgrim Clarsach, a fantastic instrument –
second to none in its class / size and he still has it.I am just nine (my birthday was last week) and I am not very tall. I have a set of pedal extensions for my Lyon & Healy 85 Grand Petite. I live in the UK and ordered my harp & the extensions from Holywell Music in London, they are great. My dad will type the rest of this.
Hi, the extensions Ben has were made by Kolancy Music in Colorado. They have an order form on their web site. http://www.kolacnymusic.com/suzuki4.htm
They are very simple and work well but you have to take them off to move the harp although Benjamin is too small to move his harp, he can take the extensions on and off. The only thing is that he can not rest his feet on the floor, some one suggested that it could be a good idea to make some kind of a box that fits under the stool and is curved around the pedals so the child can adopt the normal pose of a pedal harpist but Ben manages fine.
What a coincidence, yesterday the Welsh specialist publishers of harp music – Adlais – published a new version of Bochsa’s Morceau d’expression. In this version the notes at the back of the score have been translated from English into French.
http://www.adlaismusicpublishers.co.uk/pages/scores/S012.htm
antidisestablishmentarianism is my favourite word, is it the longest? I started playing the first movement of the Handel harp concerto when I was 6. Last year when I was 7 years old I learnt the rest of it. I played 1 & 3 in the Under 19 Camac International Lever Harp Competition in Nantes in France, it was great, I also played New Blues and a few other tunes as we all had to have two programmes, one 15 minutes long, the other 25 minutes. All the finalist were at least 10 years older than me, The boy who won was twice as big as me so I was happy to come second.
But yesterday was my BEST HARP DAY EVER, I played my Lyon & Healy 85 Petite in the Under 12 Solo Harp Competition at the Urdd, the Welsh Youth Eisteddfod (the biggest youth festival in Europe there is dancing, singing, lots of music). I played Nataliana, by Deborah Henson-Conant. Every school has it first round in January, the school chooses one person to go to the County round, the winner then goes to the Regional round, then yesterday there were the preliminaries, every one plays then after straight after the top three have to play again on stage.
This year the Urdd is in my home town of Cardiff at our new Millennium Centre, the stage was massive and the theatre has nearly two thousand seats, it was great, but I was nervous, but my harp sounded so good and I won.
I still play my lever harp, I really love doing the Handel, it has 52 lever changes, but the pedal harp is better for jazz, and I think you can use the petite in an orchestra – David Watkins told me that he uses a very old Lyon & Healy with 44 strings in the orchestra and he used to be principal harp of The Royal Ballet and the London Philharmonic Orchestra!
I am 8 years old, I used to have trouble spelling my surname its Creighton Griffiths, so please allow me a wrong spelling sometimes and being from Wales some words we spell other ways. But I was just looking at this with my Dad. I have a Lyon & Healy 85 GP Petite. The sound from mine is very big, my teacher Eluned Pierce & my Aunty Eluned Scourfield & Dylan Rowlands all have full sized Lyon & Healys and each have a Salvi or two but they can all get almost as big a sound on my harp as they can on theirs in the lower, middle ranges. It is in the top octave where the sound is not as strong and i don’t have the exta three strings they have. By the way when I was asked to play the Handel Harp Concerto with The Welsh Sinfonia to raise money for the Tsunami Victims I used my Pilgrim lever harp. At the end of the concert lots of people said that they could HEAR my harp but because I am small and so is the lever harp, they could not SEE me!
Well how about Five harps! Adlais Music publishers publish a traditional Welsh piece “Tros y dwr i draeth Llansteffan” arranged by Andr? Schaefer. “Over the sea to Llansteffan” – is the English title of this old Welsh tune.
In the BBC television film ‘Their Harps of Gold’, the five harpists who gave the first performance of this arrangement – Caryl Thomas,Valerie Aldrich-Smith, Siwan Jones, Shan Llewellyn-Jones and Adrienne Cowen – can be heard and seen playing it on the beach at Ferryside, with the sun shining on the river Tywi, the fishermen plying their nets, and Llansteffan and its castle in the background.Deborah Henson-Conant has a cool one for two harps, “Off She Goes & She’s Gone” my teacher Eluned Pierce played one part on her pedal harp and I used my Camac electric lever harp in a Christmas concert last year. Ann Griffiths of Adlais has also just done a great one Prelude (Ave Maria)(BWV 846),The famous Prelude in C. On her site it says “Specially arranged for Harp 1 to be played by teacher (leader) on pedal harp with Harp 2 played by harpist beginner on lever or pedal harp Harp 1 can also be played as a solo” I played it with Ann she used my Pedal Harp and I played the other part on my Pilgrim lever harp. Adlais also do lots of other duets Schubert Ave Maria & Serenade, then John Thomas Cambria, Carmen, Scenes from Childhood. I am very lucky because I have lots of Adlais music as my Dad prints it for Adlais and Ann said I should have a copy of all her scores – there are over 100 of them. But I am only 8 years old
Hi, Janet Harbision can be contacted at:-
The Irish Harp Centre
The Old School House
Chapel Hill
Castleconnell
Co. Limerick
IRELAND
Telephone +353 (0)61 372777
Fax +353 (0)61 372712
E-mail info@irishharpcentre.comThe web site is at http://www.irishharpcentre.com
Hi, my name is Benjamin, I am 7 years old and I live in Cardiff in Wales. I have been playing the harp for 3 years and I have a Pilgrim lever harp. Also two weeks ago Camac Harps gave me the first ever new 36 string electric harp as a present!!! It is painted in purple my favourite colour. I love playing jazz and Bules as well as classical music. I play Nataliana & New Blues by Deborah Henson-Conant and I have nearly finished learning the Handel Harp concerto. I have a web site at http://www.bjcg.co.uk but my best e-mail is mwynion@aol.com
