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During the first act of Hansel and Gretel, I remember embroidering Christmas stockings for a friend’s children.
A friend told me there is a nice restaurant across the street from Lyon & Healy. You could have lunch there.
Maybe it’s that harps and strings have become much more expensive. Not looking forward to losing the last of my Classic gut strings and having to replace with the more expensive Bow Brand, but that’s the way it goes. High humidity does make my gut strings wear out much faster.
Probably need to check your part against the full score or the rehearsal piano reduction to find out what’s going on before and after those glissandi so you’ll know what chord or key you’re sliding toward. That will help you choose the pedals settings you’ll need. Sometimes when they’re written in, they still don’t sound right with the rest of the orchestra and you have to make some judicious changes. If it’s convenient for you to sit in on a prior rehearsal, maybe you can get the info you need.
Sylvia Woods’ “Hymns and Wedding Music for All Harps” has simple arrangements which you can adapt for your student.
Check out Ray Pool’s collections. There are several books of standards plus a book of Christmas tunes. Also the Salvi Pop collections which were formerly available as individual pieces–some challenging arrangements by Michael Amorosi, Stella Castelluci, Verlye Mills, et al. Jan Jennings, Paul Baker and David Ice have put some good arrangements out there. Scan through the popular music on the Vanderbilt and Lyon & Healy websites. Lots of good stuff.
I love my cart (no longer in production) and have had to replace the strap over the years several times from wear. I buy it from a fabric store; looks like seat belt strapping. You can use the hardware from the original and just make a longer one to suit your needs.
Where did you hear this news? There’s nothing that I could find on the Lyon & Healy website, but I’m not the best on searching the internet.
The value of any harp is what people are willing to pay for it, not its scarcity, although that can be a factor for some. The 17 was never a big seller compared to other models, probably because it was the most expensive semi-grand Lyon & Healy made (until they brought back some of the discontinued, early 20th century gilded models in the 1980s), but the soundboard was narrower than a concert grand, so the sound was never as large. I had one I loved for 32 years and it was marvelous from day one, but I finally sold it because it wasn’t being played as it deserved. Why? Because I needed the extra volume of a concert grand in orchestra, and I had a smaller, lighter weight 44-string for casual jobs. If it had weighed less or had a wider soundboard, I probably would have kept it.
If I could afford all the harps I want, I would buy one such. There is nothing like the sound of a Lyon & Healy. I think it is the standard by which all others are measured.
