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This CD by Scottish harpist and composer Karen Marshalsay is a firm favourite of mine and gets regularly played in my car when I'm driving.
I absolutely love everything about this CD... the sound of the three different harps she plays, the music and the ornamentation is really quite extraordinary. She has a tutor book you can buy to study the different techniques she uses HERE
I find the sound of the wire harp completely enchanting and etheral, and the sound of the bray harp is just bonkers! I'd personally love to get hold of a bray harp at some point to have a play around on, it is just the craziest sounding thing ever - I love it.
Back to Karen's CD - this is a GREAT CD. It's available on spotify etc, but I always recommend to support the artist and buy the CDs direct from the artists whenever possible. so buy it HERE Brilliant harping, fantastic use of ornamentation, great compositions - bravo Karen!
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Bravo to Keziah Thomas on yet another amazing arrangement of Vivaldi's Four Seasons - this time Summer.
Part of her project to arrange all Four Seasons throughout 2019, this is a wonderful project and so beautifully done. Really lovely stuff bravo again Keziah1 https://www.keziah.co.uk/
Alexander Rider has produced another great harp video - this time on Mireille Flour and a Magical Aviary: “La Volière Magique” by Marcel Tournier (1879-1951) Another wonderful video from Alexander Rider playing on his beautiful Erard harp, this time playing Rubinstein Romance Op44 arranged by harpist Virgina Ciarlone. Alex also shares some of his research about this Italian harpist who worked in Russia in the late 1890's. Having played in a mandolin and harp duo for many years, I absolutely love the sound world that Ishtar make. French duo, Ishtar, consist of Maëlle Duchemin as harpist and singer and the multi-instrumental skills of Maëlle Coulange on various plucked instruments. I can't find a link anywhere online to buy their CD, but their soundcloud is here. I suspect that their CD is only available by emailing them. The contact details are on their website.
I've finally ordered MC & The 7 Pedals album GLUTEN FREE from Bandcamp. I've been meaning to do it for a while,so I'm looking forward to that arriving in the post. I've posted a blog about Maria-Christina a few years back and I absolutely love her playing, the special effects she does on the harp and the way she uses loops. Check out the cheeky tuning key in the pedal slot to create a consistent buzz, I am SO GOING TO borrow that idea! I had to do a whole load of pedal buzzes recently and I could have done with knowing how to achieve the perfect pedal buzz.  Her website is HERE Support her music by buying her CD here if you don't already have it. GLUTEN FREE I always like to physically buy albums to support music creators if I can rather than use the streaming services where artists get a pitiful amount like 0.0001 per stream I also love her collaboration with activist rapper Potent Whisper - brilliant video! info taken from YouTube ~ Rapper and activist Potent Whisper has teamed up with award-winning Electric Harpist Maria-Christina & The 7 Pedals to release new single 'NOW' "The single is a fusion of Harp and Rap; politically responsive lyricism set to the experimental - non romantic - sounds of the Electric Harp. After hearing a preview of the single, a reviewer asked me how many musicians feature on the track and I had to explain that it's just the two of us. Every sound that you hear on the track was played by Maria-Christina, she has one hundred and one different ways to manipulate her Harp; she's a real innovator in that respect." - Potent Whisper
The South London rapper and BRIT School graduate made the papers in 2015 with his anti-gentrification single 'Brixton First' featuring Lara Lee (star of BBC's The Voice). The single was supported by Tom Robinson on BBC Radio 1 and Radio 6, receiving further coverage from The Evening Standard Since winning first place at the Wales International Harp Competition in 2010, Maria-Christina & The 7 Pedals has gone on to tour Europe and given performances at numerous prestigious venues in the UK, most recently featuring on Later With Jools Holland on BBC2. She is currently undertaking her PhD on the Modern Harp at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London Maria-Christina Website: http://www.mcandthe7pedals.com Potent Whisper Website: http://potentwhisper.com/ Download 'Now' - https://amzn.com/B01APVVBFQ I can't believe I haven't done a blog post about this brilliant short film before now on 'Une Chatelaine en sa Tour' by Faure. Here, Alexander Rider plays this seminal work for harp on an original Erard harp from 1902. Alex also introduces a little of the work's history and that of its creator, the harpist Micheline Kahn (1889-1987). As well as being a wonderful musician, Alex seems to have an encyclopaedic knowledge on harp history and is also one of the nicest people I know!
When Alex isn't busy performing or researching, he generously shares his knowledge with other harpists as Editor of the UKHA HARP magazine. Fabulous playing from the Hermanos Corbalan harp duo, and also solo harp ofSixto Corbalan. It's got everything: passionate playing, great music and also both are brilliantly filmed videos. They also have free PDFs of sheet music of a few of their solo harp pieces on their website, so no excuse to not have a go at playing their music. They are coming over to the UK soon, it will be great to see them play live.
Wow - Alisa Sadikova - (9 years old) playing La Source by Zabel with real musicality. It's a really hard piece and she makes the huge stretches in the middle section look really easy, I don't know how she does it with her small hands. Brilliant !!! |