Blue Pages

Camac Voice, March 2012: Marcella Carboni and Elisabetta Antonini

For March's Camac Voice, we're very grateful to Blue Serge records for authorising a clip from one of their newest releases - Nuance. Nuance, by Italian jazz harpist Marcella Carboni and well-known singer Elisabetta Antonini, is a blend of original compositions and standards, with the blue harp at its core. “We called the album "Nuance" because we wanted to explore the nuances of the voice / harp combination”, Marcella explains. “I wanted to show how brilliant and equally how dark a harp can sound, and how the ensemble is capable of strong contrasts too - very rhythmic, or etherally delicate. We were lucky enough to be able to record in a very good studio in Cavalicco, where we could do all the work on sound we wanted to. In our first track, “Choro pro Zé”, the sound is very spare and minimal; we used cloth to damp the harp strings in “From A Dream”, and “Tutu” (Miles Davis) and Elisabetta’s song “Circe” use live electronics. Thanks to loop stations and effects pedals, we were able to record everything live - that was really important to us.”

 

Like most jazz harpists, Marcella is classically-trained, but “I always listened to all kinds of music, and jazz was my favourite. I heard and was inspired in particular by the exceptional live performances I heard - Miles Davis or Dizzy Gillespie, for example, and of course all the major Italian jazz musicians. It was in 1998, in Perugia, that I met Park Stickney for the first time. I was so surprised that he could play jazz on the harp - he showed me that it was possible.

After meeting Park, I started to study jazz with various teachers, mostly pianists. At the same time, I started to play with other jazz musicians, which really motivated me to persevere. I also took courses and private lessons with Park in England, Germany and Switzerland. I then pursued postgraduate jazz studies at the Cagliari Conservatory of Music in Sardinia, with Australian pianist Peter Waters. 

As part of all my jazz studies, I was a regular attendee of the Nuoro Jazz courses - the staff there have become my close friends, and they have played a vital role in my artistic development. Even when I was no longer a student, they continued to support me and always invited me to play with them in the courses’ concluding concerts. It was in Nuoro that I met Elisabetta Antonini; she was the vocal coach, together with Maria Pia De Vito.

Elisabeth Valletti nominated for Eighth Qwartz Awards

Last year, Camac's MIDI harp won the Max Matthews Prize for technological innovation at the seventh Qwartz Awards in Paris. Now Elisabeth Valletti, who performed on the MIDI harp at the prizegiving ceremony, is in the running for the eighth Awards (musical experimentation category)! She has been nominated for her eighteen "Exercices pour la Harpe MIDI", which include the Harp Haikus she performed when the MIDI harp won its prize.

VERY IMPORTANT: this prize has a public vote, which you can cast here. The closing date for voting is February 15th.

 

 

Marcella Carboni and Elisabetta Antonini: Nuance

 

 

Marcella Carboni and Elisabetta Antonini have released a great new harp + vocals album, in jazz style: 'Nuance'. Find out more in their press release, below!

 

A Bird Came Flying: audio / video competition for harpists, composers and sound engineers

 

Anne Vanschothorst has designed a competition with a twist. A Bird Came Flying is a set of five short original pieces written by Anne herself, and published by Inge Frimout-Hei in September 2011. The compositions' minimalist style lend themselves to improvisation and sound processing - and this is what Anne's competition is for. 

There are three categories - for performers, for sound engineers, and also we are sponsoring a prize for the best youth (under eighteen) entry. The music is appropriate for lever and pedal harpists from intermediate level and up, so we would like to encourage young harpists to take the accessible opportunity Anne is offering to explore sound processing.

 

 

 

Entries should be submitted via YouTube (performers) or YouTube / SoundCloud (sound engineers), by February 28th, 2012. All details are available on the competition site, where Anne has also helpfully posted some sound clips to give you an idea of the sorts of things that can be done with the score. There is also a Facebook page. 

 

Harp rock - Grand Square Dance

The Camac factory, deep in the Breton countryside, is a serene place. Birds tweet, sheep baa, and the soft pinging of harp-tuning gently blends with us humming Je Suis Encore Dans Mon Printemps as we go about our emails. But today, it's time for something different. Click on the video below for some electric harp rock!

 

 

Lena Woods, Jamie, Ricky and Mat are Grand Square Dance, and they’ve just released a new single: ‘Alive and Breathing’. Lena, their singer, is a classically-trained harpist, while Jamie (guitar), Mat (drums) and Ricky (bass) are rock musicians. Mix them together and you have a new sound for the French pop-rock scene, with melodies inspired by U2, vocals worthy of Pat Benetar, and experimental instrumentals that feel like Metallica, or Skunk Anansie.

Grand Square Dance was formed in 2008 in Rouen, Normandy. The group has released two EPs (2009, and February 2011). Their first EP was a mixture of rock and soul, but  2011 has seen them head more in the direction of hard rock, plus the electric harp. Alongside the heavy guitar riffs, energetic percussion and powerful vocals that remind you of the 1990s, the harp provides a more melodic, posied element.

Lena has played the harp since the age of seven (taught by her mother, director of Rouen’s Harpa school), but she broke off her harp lessons to concentrate on rock music in her teens. Grand Square Dance was originally a classic rock formation, and they released two albums like this (available here on FNAC). For their third album, of which their latest single ‘Alive and Breathing’ will be a part, they wanted to do something new.

"We immediately thought that integrating the electric harp could be very original and exciting’, Lena explains. "It’s true that it’s not the instrument that first springs to your mind when you think of rock music. But two years ago I had re-started my harp lessons, withMyriam Serfass, and I’d been exploring jazz harp. I quickly became interested in rock harp. Camac’s blue harps can be amplified and their sound processed like that of guitars, so even if the harp originally couldn’t have played any part in rock, it can now. We’re working on making my Baby Blue electric lever harp part of all the songs on our new album. You can follow our progress on MySpace and Facebook. There’ll be a tour in 2012, and a lot of other gigs before that too!"

 

Cristina Braga and Ricardo Medeiros on MTV

If you watch MTV, you might have already seen these videos by Cristina Braga and Ricardo Medeiros that the channel has picked. Now that doesn't happen to the harp world very often!

 

Cristina Braga

 

Cristina Braga

 

 

 

MIDI Harp in Revista Musical Catalana

For those of you who read Catalan, there is an extensive article by Josep Barcons in the most recent edition of Revista Musical Catalana, about the MIDI harp and the projects focused around it at the IRCAM in Paris.

If you can't read Catalan, you can find out more about the same projects in the current edition of Harpseasons!

Alice in Antarctica: webcast of the Antarctica Festival, Australian National University

Alice Giles, as Harpblog has previously reported, has carried out an amazing project in Antarctica - see her "Alice in Antarctica" blog to find out more!

 

Part of Alice's project included commissioning and premiering music inspired by Antarctica. Now you have a chance to hear this music via a webcast. Alice will give a concert as part of the Antarctica Festival held by the Australian National University School of Music, which will also be streamed live on the internet - find the link to the webcast here. It is a repeat of the concert Alice played at Mawson Station earlier this year, with the addition of visuals, some footage of the outdoor pieces/sounds, and Tegan Peemoeller as guest soprano.

You can listen live on June 26th at 5PM, and the link will stay active for some days afterwards. 

 

 

 

Odyssée de la harpe 2011

 

The Odyssée de la harpe is a very special festival, which takes place every year in Bourg-La-Reine near Paris. Animated by Ghislaine Petit-Volta and now in its sixth year, it is a festival entirely dedicated to the blue harp, responsible for many of the major projects and new music for the instrument (read more about the festival's history in Florence's article on the subject, here).

2011's festival, which will be on May 21st and 22nd, 2011, is focusing on jazz, with performances by the wonderful Rossitza Milevska and her Milevska Jazz Trio, and the jazz harp legend who is Park Stickney. In addition, the festival's opening concert will feature an interesting programme of jazz, pop and contemporary music, from Charles Mingus to Benjamin Britten, with the participation of Florence Bourdon and Marianne Le Mentec's harp classes.

To reserve your seats, contact the CRR conservatoire, Bourg-La-Reine:+33 1 41 87 22 32.

 

Lena Woods

Here's another great example of a harpist pursuing a really original musical path. Lena Woods is both a harpist (a student of Myriam Serfass) and a rock singer. As well as her own songwriting, Lena also does covers of e.g. The Cure, Alter Bridge, Janis Joplin, Metallica, Pearl Jam, NIN.

YouTube channel here; MySpace, here.