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The harpist in this video is an Italian, Andrea Piazza. He lives in San Gimignano where he can frequently be found playing in the main piazza. I got to know him when I lived in Florence a few years back. He plays a single-action Tyrolean harp. He does have a unique style of playing on the left shoulder but he doesn’t switch the hands so the right still plays treble and left plays the bass. I can’t remember why he does this but I believe he was influenced by Rüdiger Oppermann who also plays this way.
Hi Susan,
I’ve got students that same age who are looking for similar activities and two regional events that I would recommend to you are these:
June 19-20 Great American Irish Fair at Irvine Meadows Fairground in Irvine. CA. There will be workshops on Celtic style and a lever harp competition (adjudicated by myself and Dennis Doyle). See the website for details:
http://www.irishfair.org/CELTIC_HARP_COMPETITION_pdf.pdf
There is also the Central Coast Harp Workshop with Marcia Dickstein — July 16 – July 18 in Morro Bay, CA. Students of all ages (lever and pedal) go to the three day weekend with solo pieces prepared for masterclasses. If you want to play in an ensemble they send you music ahead of time to practice. On Sunday afternoon there’s a recital of the solo and ensemble pieces. It’s a small group and participants have lots of fun while working on technique and musicianship.
Hi Susan,
I’ve got students that same age who are looking for similar activities and two regional events that I would recommend to you are these:
June 19-20 Great American Irish Fair at Irvine Meadows Fairground in Irvine. CA. There will be workshops on Celtic style and a lever harp competition (adjudicated by myself and Dennis Doyle). See the website for details:
http://www.irishfair.org/CELTIC_HARP_COMPETITION_pdf.pdf
There is also the Central Coast Harp Workshop with Marcia Dickstein — July 16 – July 18 in Morro Bay, CA. Students of all ages (lever and pedal) go to the three day weekend with solo pieces prepared for masterclasses. If you want to play in an ensemble they send you music ahead of time to practice. On Sunday afternoon there’s a recital of the solo and ensemble pieces. It’s a small group and participants have lots of fun while working on technique and musicianship.
Hi Susan,
I’ve got students that same age who are looking for similar activities and two regional events that I would recommend to you are these:
June 19-20 Great American Irish Fair at Irvine Meadows Fairground in Irvine. CA. There will be workshops on Celtic style and a lever harp competition (adjudicated by myself and Dennis Doyle). See the website for details:
http://www.irishfair.org/CELTIC_HARP_COMPETITION_pdf.pdf
There is also the Central Coast Harp Workshop with Marcia Dickstein — July 16 – July 18 in Morro Bay, CA. Students of all ages (lever and pedal) go to the three day weekend with solo pieces prepared for masterclasses. If you want to play in an ensemble they send you music ahead of time to practice. On Sunday afternoon there’s a recital of the solo and ensemble pieces. It’s a small group and participants have lots of fun while working on technique and musicianship.
Yikes Janelle, what a thrill that must have been! Strangely, I had the same experience in a Buick station wagon many years ago… my entire family in the car, rounding the bend on a mountain road with a steep drop-off to one side, axle broke, wheel fell off, car ground to a halt at the very edge of the precipice… It was exciting. Thank goodness there was no harp in the car at the time.
Anyway, you have a good excuse to go car shopping! Let us know what you find.
Contact Enrico Tartarotti at info@harpshop.eu. He sells several different brands of new and used harps In Italy and probably rents them, too.
I have an iphone and for .99 cents the “Tempo” metronome app is amazing. I have it with me wherever I go and I use it every day. Here’s a link with description and review:
John Dorman in Alberta, Canada makes a 38-string folding travel harp that is constructed mostly of carbon fiber. I’ve never played one and I don’t know how it sounds but you can see it here:
http://www.dormanmusic.com/NoFrames/Travel_Harp_Pictures.htm
In praise of carbon fiber…
I have owned a Camac Aziliz lever harp for eight years. The soundboard has a very thin layer of carbon fiber sandwiched between two layers of spruce and it’s strung with Savarez fluorocarbon strings. The tuning is extremely stable, the sound is very clear and big for a small-bodied harp and it’s light-weight and easy to transport. I bought this harp specifically for touring and knowing that it would take some hard knocks. It has traveled untold miles by train, plane, automobile, bus, ferry boat and even on a tractor once. It has been wheeled on a cart over many kilometers of cobblestones. It’s been lost for days at the Paris airport on two occasions and then returned. It’s still a great-sounding and solid little harp, not muddy or boomy.
I have a Camac Atlantide concert grand that has an inner string rib that appears to made of carbon fiber although the soundboard material is cedar rather than spruce. The cedar gives a warmth to the tone that I preferred over the spruce and I imagine the cf string rib gives strength and resilience without adding a lot of mass. The tone is even across the range, there is a real clarity in the mid and bass range where some other harps can be muddy and I think it’s an awesome-sounding harp that is also very responsive to play. The carbon fiber column is strong and light – the harp weighs around 75 pounds total.
I have a few other harps by different makers that are all wood, no cf, and I love them all. I applaud the folks who are experimenting with modern technology and materials in an attempt to make my life as a harpist easier and more enjoyable.
JP, why is it that you suggest banning Denise K. for being truthful about her experience but it’s OK for Rosemary O’Carroll to use every opportunity to make snide remarks about Venus Harps?
And Maria, I don’t think Denise was suggesting that we all stop discussing this point, I think she was saying that she herself was not interested in discussing it anymore. She may have gone over the top in her response but it’s understandable after the abuse Rosemary has been heaping on during the last few months.
None of us knows the details of what went on between Rosemary and Venus Harps but I will say that as a reader of this forum I got very tired of Rosemary’s bashing, on several threads, of a company that she felt had wronged her and it was easy enough to understand she was referring to Venus. Rosemary, I’m very sorry for your frustration over this purchase but if you felt wronged, there are more constructive ways to deal with it than constantly dropping indirect hints and nasty comments. If this was your method of dealing with Venus about the problem then I can understand why Denise lost her cool with you.
I myself purchased a very expensive pedal harp last year, not a Venus, and there were some problems with that instrument that took quite a while (nearly a year) to straighten out. I felt exasperated many times during that process but I did not spew nasty comments about them on the Harpcolumn forum as it would have accomplished nothing good. I maintained a communicative and cooperative relationship with the manufacturer, in the end the problem was rectified and I’m extremely happy with the harp.
We’re all human and imperfect, and that includes harpmakers. But I really don’t believe that ANY harpmaker who’s been in business for over 30 years would say to themselves, “Oops, this harp is a real dog. Let’s foist it off on somebody far away” or, to quote Rosemary, “near enough is good enough for the injured gal in Tasmania.” If Rosemary had been making all these mean comments about ME on this public forum I think I would have shot back much sooner than Denise did.
I don’t currently own a Venus but the ones I’ve had the opportunity to play and hear were gorgeous-sounding instruments and I’d love to have one. The Venus owners I know are thrilled with their harps and also with the personal service they receive from the Krasickis. I realise everybody is different but my own experience with Venus over the years by phone and meeting them at conferences and at their factory has only been extremely positive and I find them to be professional, passionate about what they do and quite helpful.
I feel the need to put in my two cents because this whole discussion seems to have become an attack on Venus and it doesn’t seem right. Can we all try to be more positive and respectful of each other? Please?
I’ve been using this series with some of my youngest students and I think it’s brilliant. Each book is divided into sections so students can focus on technique, note reading, theory and repertoire development equally. The series progresses in a step-by-step manner so yes, a student should be able to confidently play the repertoire and exercises in one book before going on to the next.
Adult beginning students who had some musical education as children often have gaping holes in their music theory knowledge or feel rusty on note reading. Look through each book in the series and find the one that suits your student’s current level. It’s not a bad idea to begin them in a book that is a little too easy so they can start off with confidence, fill any knowledge gaps and build from there. If you’re not near a harp store that carries these, check out the descriptions of each book at an on-line store such as http://www.harpconnection.com.
Laurie
