Why I always have fresh flowers when I ZOOM

I always try to have fresh flowers in my online teaching zone. Mostly it's so my ZOOM students have something nice to look at, but to be honest they are there to make it cheerful for me. As much as I love my students (I really do), and I am so grateful for the many online harp connections I have, as our post Covid life stretches out it depresses me more and more that I can't sit amongst a large group of musicians and play orchestral music. As a freelance musician the chance of any extra harp work with orchestras seems a very long way off.

I really miss playing in orchestras.

The sound of an orchestra is completely f**king awesome. To sit behind the violins and have brass and percussion playing behind you and woodwind to the side of you and play Strauss or Berlioz or Mahler.

Looking at fresh flowers every day helps me mitigate that loss of 25 years of regularly playing harp in symphony and chamber orchestras.

I find playing my pedal harp just too depressing these days. Onwards and upwards instead with a focus on lever harp and composition which is a new separate harp journey for me.