It’s hard to believe that it’s nearly 10 years since Alison Stephens died. She was the leading exponent of the classical mandolin in the UK, working at one time or another with most of the country's major orchestras, but she also did much to popularise the instrument too, through contributions to popular films (most notably Captain Corelli's Mandolin), live performances, teaching and composing.

I wrote an obituary about her for The Guardian at the time and it seems appropriate to share it again here as it lists her extraordinary career and achievements.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/oct/28/alison-stephens-obituary

​Ali was a grafter and everything she achieved was from sheer hard work. Whatever life threw at her, (and boy she didn’t have it easy) she tackled with grace and determination. She was passionate about music and life and always put her full energy into everything.

​​As well as a colleague, Ali was a good friend and 10 years on, she is still fondly remembered and much missed by all who knew and worked with her.

​Alison Stephens back catalogue https://open.spotify.com/artist/4o9Jpn6cctDuD93hUYpPQH

I wasn't sure whether to post this video or not... but since it's now in Hansard and a matter of public records...

I wrote to my local MP, Fiona Bruce about my situation during the pandemic (as a freelance self-employed musician), and was extremely surprised that she read it out (nearly in full!) in the House of Commons. Fiona is an excellent local MP and has been very supportive of the arts in Cheshire. 

My personal situation is no different to any other freelance self-employed musician.

After months of sporadic online playing to be able to pack my harp up, get it into my car, drive to a venue and play music to other people in REAL LIFE at a wedding today was a much needed tonic. 

Over the past 25 years I've played at the grandest to the most intimate of weddings, and yet today's was the most special. Streamed over the internet to friends and family who couldn't be there, the masked guests were witness to an event which will be remembered for many years to come.

Most weddings which had been years in the planning with huge guest lists and an array of wedding suppliers have all been postponed until 2021.

​The few couples who have managed to get married in 2020 will be in a very exclusive club. 

In years to come they can look back and wonder how on earth they ever managed the logistics of a wedding during a global pandemic. It will be a badge of honour that everyone who has got married this year can wear with pride.

I've just finished editing a new piece for solo harp by my husband, Andy Scott. 

It's his version of the traditional tune, The Wayfaring Stranger and its quite an epic version!

Welcome to the new normal - hopefully you'll have found yours by now.

It's taken me a little while to find my new normal and like everyone else, I have good days and bad days. Good days include keeping to a routine and keeping myself busy.

Highlights for me are the Virtual Ceilidhs that I host every Sunday evening online. It's a lovely gathering of professional and non-professional harpists on a very low pressure basis - join a session as and when you want to - and we all play one short piece. It's a lovely way to connect by listening and sharing music with each other.

I continue to be so grateful during this lockdown that I live in a house with a garden and that we are coming into warmer weather in the UK. With four adults in my house, and no dedicated private harp room it is great to be able to retreat to my shed to play my lever harp.

We are now well into the COVID-19 worldwide lockdown and everything has changed for everyone. 

On a personal level, like every other self-employed freelance musician I find myself without any income. But so has everyone else who is self-employed. 

I was due to play at the World Harp Congress later this year, then various concerts in Australia, stop over in Hong Kong on the way back home. Tour with the RLPO in Japan and South Korea... but it seems all quite meaningless to have lost gigs, when one of my relatives partners mum is currently extremely ill with COVID-19 and it looks like she won't make it. 

Health is more important every time. And we will all get through this. Together.

I'm extremely lucky that I have a house with a garden, and with a house full and no private music room I've re-fashioned my garden shed into a little harp hut so I can have some privacy. I am very grateful to have this space as I know so many must be really suffering during this lock down in crowded and unsafe relationships. 

It's difficult to make sense of it all, but it's interesting that after 1 week into a nationwide lock down, that the emotions have so quickly gone from shock, upset to resignation and acceptance. Amongst all that is the comfort to be drawn from absorbing yourself in something that you are passionate about. In my case, music and playing the harp.

So with that in mind, here is the first of my Lock Down Shed sessions...

I always put total commitment and energy into every harp project I do, but I don't always get paid! Any support you can give is very much appreciated.

My goodness what a week! It's been a little while since my last blog on here mainly because life has gone a bit crazy, but I shall try to get back into more regular posts again...

In the meantime, I have a new CD being released on Friday this week on the Avie Records label, and it's currently Album of the Week on the digital Classical Radio station - Scala Radio. The announcement by the PRS Foundation that I have recently been selected to their Women Make Music scheme to commission a new work for harp ensemble (more about that HERE) and to top if off I'm having a private Album Launch this Friday evening and I'll be interviewed by Simon Mayo on his show on Scala on Friday morning.

This has been a HUGE project, not only doing the recording, getting a deal with Avie Records, but also composing 8 of the tracks on the albums. 

I only started composing in 2018 and I'm not quite sure where 'that' has all come from, but it's been a bit bonkers and taken up any spare time I have, hence the neglect of this blog!

Lots of public thank yous are due for the completion of this album project.

To Rob Buckland for the most amazing recording - it's not easy to get a good sound recording a harp and he has done so beautifully and really captured the essence of the lever harp. Amazing recording, engineering and mastering.

To my ever patient family for being really understanding over the past couple of years when I've been physically present but mentally absent whilst composing.

To my husband, Andy Scott, who is the most amazing composer and has been so supportive and encouraging of my delving into the compositional world. 

To all my wonderful harp students, for being a constant inspiration - you are all amazing!

To all my friends and colleagues in the harp community for being really encouraging and supportive of my music.

To Avie Records for producing such a beautiful physical CD. The artwork, production and attention to detail has been amazing. I'm so pleased with it!

You can listen to the playback on Scala Radio for one week online HERE

What a delight it was to be at the Perth Harp Festival at the beginning of this month! A brilliantly organised event by the West Australia Harp Society, and it was a privilege to be able to present a workshop on extended techniques for lever harp as well as a concert of my music.

​It was the first time I had travelled on a plane with my lever harp and my harp certainly had some adventures on the way.

The first of which was the realisation at the reclaim baggage area at Perth airport that, after 18 hours of travel, my harp hadn't made the transfer during the stopover in Hong Kong. Maximum stress levels then ensued!!! But the good people at Perth airport sorted it out and eventually the harp made the next flight and was couriered on to me.

Now that I know that the harp might be "bumped' off flights without my knowledge because it's 'oversized', I'm prepared for future trips. Despite having a photo of a harp stuck onto the harp case, airport check in staff still came up to me asking if it was a bicycle.

Lesson learnt = always make sure there is another flight to your destination after the one you have booked, to give the harp a  chance to catch up with you in case it's bumped off the flight.

The relief of the harp arriving the day before my recital was immense!!!

After the harp arrival drama, it was straight into the harp festival hosted at the Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts. Unfortunately I could only be there for one day, which was a great shame as I would have like to have been there for the whole event. As well as meeting lots of lovely harpists in Perth, it was fabulous to see so many different makes of harps that I hadn't seen before. I'm very grateful to the kindness extended to me by the local harpists, especially Bronwen Wallis who organised some private teaching for me, and to WAAPA for allowing me to teach in their college. Harp festivals are great places to meet with old and new harp friends, and it was good to spend a little bit of time hanging out with new harp friends including Becky Swann from New Zealand.

Homeward bound was more straightforward with my harp and it managed not to get lost this time in the airport system!

We had a few days in Hong Kong on the way back to the U.K and it was a chance to visit Ting Lau in her harp studio after meeting her the week before in Perth. 

I'm really looking forward to coming back to Australia, (and hopefully Hong Kong) in August 2020 for a more extensive trip and will be working with the harp students at WAAPA and collaborating on a new contemporary harp duo project with Australian harpist, Catherine Ashley. 

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!

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/

I haven't had any broken nylon or carbon fibre strings since I first fitted them. However one of the wires started to go 'curly' in the middle of the string and start to go out of tune. I've never experienced that curly feeling in the middle of a wire string before so I thought it was probably time to change it PDQ. Having replaced that wire string and noticed the difference in sound I decided to change all the wires and multifilament wires.

​WHAT A DIFFERENCE those new wires have made!!!

The rest of the strings still sound great, so there isn't any need to change them at all unless one breaks (which I suspect won't be for a while), I'll keep an ear on them in case they start to sound dull or out of tune, but so far they all sound good. However I think a refresh of the wires and multifilament wires every couple of years will probably be a good thing as they do seem to wear out.

Link to post with pictures about the multifilament wires HERE

and more about my custom Starfish string set up HERE

I've recorded a couple of fun and easy to learn exercises for pedal harp that can be use as a daily warm up.

The first mini tutorial is called "let's get those feet moving!"

I play through the whole warm-up exercise on this IGTV post here

The harder version of that exercise is in a mini tutorial called, "One Step Beyond!", and the video for that is below...