Blue Pages

Some Western Wind

More blue harp repertoire news from Swedish jazz harpist Stina Hellberg. Together with classical composer Patrik Jarlestam, Stina has written a work for blue harp and orchestra, "Some Western Wind", which will be premiered on November 21st as part of the Sandviken Symphony Orchestra's seventy-fifth anniversary celebrations. 

Stina Hellberg.  Photo:  Matts Hellberg

"Some Western Wind" is inspired by the music of Dave Holland, Stina's favourite jazz musician, together with Afro-Cuban and Swedish folk elements.  The work also fuses classical concerto and more improvisatory jazz forms.  There is an extended harp solo, for example, where the double bass, vibraphone and percussion can form a jazz quartet with the harp and improvise together. 

In a manner comparable to Elzbieta Sikora's blue harp concertino "South Shore", Stina and Patrik leave many of the sound processing effects possible on the blue harp up to the performer.  Stina uses some delay combined with soft reverb, but other performers are free to choose something else. 

Quadro Nuevo - tango bitter sweet

The award-winning German quartet Quadro Nuevo normally consists of: Mulo Francel (saxophones, clarinets), Andreas Hinterseher (accordion, vibrandoneon, xylophone), D. D. Lowka (double bass, percussion), and Robert Wolf on the guitar.  However, poor Robert is convalescing from a car accident, and so is replaced for the current season by Evelyn Huber on the blue harp.  It is with Evelyn that Quadro Nuevo will make their London debut, on November 1st, 2009, in the Music Hall of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

The quartet will perform a show based on their latest CD, tango bitter sweet.  This album fuses world and Oriental music, jazz, cabaret, flamenco, valse musette, Balkan swing, and original songs with the passionate nostalgia of European tango.  The four musicians’ venues are as diverse as the roots of their music: they appear in concert halls and festivals all over the world, but also travel around the Southern Mediterranean as street musicians, enticing their audience to dance as a nightly tango band!

new works for harp and electronics

Jakez is used to my calling him and saying "you know you're coming to Munich from Beijing via Paris at the start of September?  Well, in London on the Thursday...".  Sadly, this time the travel gods were against us - but we are very grateful to Alex Rider for being our London correspondent, and sending me this review of Elizabeth's Scorah's recital of many new works for the blue harp.  

The Big Blue: New Works for Harp and Electronics: Elizabeth Scorah, Harp

September 10, 2009- Royal Academy of Music, London

As many harp students will know, there is a lot more to presenting a performance exam than a mere succession of pieces, arranged chronologically and delivered to a panel of passive, dehumanized adjudicators. Far from it; now there is much emphasis on having a concept, of making a presentation that will excite and entertain the intellect as well the ears. The idea of a ‘programme’ means that the pieces are given cohesion and context, things that breathe life not only into the audience experience but into the playing as well. The laterally thinking student might find also that the occasion is given a greater sense of meaning beyond the fulfillment of an academic requirement: the reward being a sense of a satisfaction equal to a ‘good mark’.

Currently studying for a Masters degree in performance at London’s Royal Academy of Music under Karen Vaughan, Elizabeth Scorah sought a way in which to enliven her exam performance Debussy’s Danses sacrée et profane and Ravel’s Introduction et Allegro. Ravel’s luscious septet and Debussy’s subtle concerto-type work are beautiful but undeniably often-heard exam fare, and today’s harp student can be hard put to set them in a rich new context. France’s illustrious history of harp-design seems to have provided the answer: it is well-known that the competing efforts of the houses of Erard and Pleyel resulted in the creation of these works and this gave Elizabeth an idea. Camac today continues this tradition of harp innovation, and the Big Blue electro-acoustic harp has become synonymous with the cutting-edge .  So, when Elizabeth approached Jakez Francois in hopes of using the Big Blue harp in her exam, the result was an ambitious and intriguing recital concept: one that juxtaposed traditional repertoire with several new and specially commissioned works for the blue harp.

NY.Xperienced - SONGS, London, September 24th 2009

Having been to watch Myriam Serfass performing on the blue harp with Dita von Teese in Paris, you can get on the Eurostar and go to London to hear Elisabeth Valletti's gig at the Hope and Anchor, 207 Upper Street, Islington N1, on September 24th at 9PM. 

Elisabeth will be playing her new show NY.Xperienced - SONGS, which I blogged about in July. 

NY.Xperienced_ SONGS_ Excerpts of the album-elisabeth valletti from elisabeth valletti on Vimeo.

blue harp goes burlesque

Camac's blue harp is on stage at the Casino de Paris with Dita von Teese! 

Myriam Serfass is Dita's harpist in the Gentry de Paris Revue.  The show is running until September 17th and you can book your ticket here.

Update:  review here!

Myriam and Dita   

new blue harp repertoire from London

Blue harp news from London!

For her performance Masters at the Royal Academy of Music, Elizabeth Scorah has to design a lecture-recital based on an original concept.  She’s therefore taken the French tradition of innovative instrument design, and linked this with four new pieces for the blue harp from the cream of Britain’s up-and-coming composers.

It all started because Elizabeth wanted more than anything to perform Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro at her exam. This piece needs a creative twist to become an "original concept ", and so Elizabeth began to consider why this masterpiece had been composed in the first place. 

Both the Debussy Danses and the Ravel septet were written to show off two new kinds of harp, made in France – respectively, the cross-strung chromatic harp, and Erard’s double-action masterpiece.  Camac continue the French spirit of technical innovation in all their harps.  For example, Camac levers are widely acknowledged to be the best in the world; pedal rods have been replaced with unbreakable cables; the concert harps are ten kilos lighter; the mechanism is more accurately regulated;  a more hard-wearing but equally quiet soft plastic is wrapped around the pedals instead of fragile felt;  you can perform a basic regulation yourself in five minutes;  the strings have been re-angled back to the ergonomic alignments of the Erard harps, more comfortable to the hand; and the sound box has been painstakingly redesigned for more beautiful and even sound (read "inside the Camac factory" to find out more).

In March 2009, Camac brought more innovative French harps to London:  the concert grand electric "blue harp", and the revolutionary new MIDI harp.  By this point, Elizabeth had decided that her Masters concert would consist of the Debussy and Ravel performed on a Camac New Generation Atlantide Prestige, plus new works for the blue harp she would commission herself. 

On September 9th, 2009, at 730 PM in the David Josefowitch Hall of London’s Royal Academy of Music, Elizabeth will give the world premieres of blue harp pieces by John Chambers, Alfie Granger-Howell,  David Snell, Park Stickney, Ayanna Witter-Johnson and Gareth Wood.  The performance will be recorded and filmed, if you can’t make it to the concert in person but would like more information about the works. 

Elisabeth Valletti and The Orfeo Project

Elisabeth Valletti has returned to Paris after some years in New York, and has a new show out, The Orfeo Project. 

Elisabeth received a classical harp training in her native France before studying harmony and composition at Berkley College, California, and film direction at the IDHEC in Paris.  In the United States, she discovered rock and roll - Pink Floyd, the Doors, etc - Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and the jazz scene.  She played bass in a rock group for a while, and also worked with jazz musicians like Kent Carter, Jean Jacques Avenel, Daniel Cobbi and Bobby Few. 

Athy in Mouzeil

Athy has been to the Camac factory in Mouzeil, to collect his DHC blue light harp.  I already blogged this on Harpblog's home pages, but subsequently Athy sent us some very kind words about his experiences with his harp (and he's getting another one, in rainbow finish.  Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooh).

blue harp repertoire

I'm compiling a catalogue of Blue Harp repertoire, so if you know of/have commissioned/have performed works for the Blue Harp, please contact me at helen@camac-harps.com!

All contributers to the catalogue will receive a Camac rucksack, with which you'll attract even more admiring glances than usual.

some info about Camac electric harps

The Blue Harp is Camac's full-size (47 strings) electric pedal harp. It plays the same as a concert grand harp, and can also be played without amplification as a normal acoustic instrument, thanks to its acoustic soundbox.

Composing for the Blue Harp is technically the same – from the player's point of view - as composing for the concert harp, with the addition of the effects the amplification allows.

The Blue Harp has been built with four separate outputs, three of which are connected to each “split” of the harp range: high, medium and bass notes. From each of these outputs, you will get only the sound of its respective split, allowing great mixing and balancing possibilities. For example, you can make the three registers differently loud, so specific details can be heard more clearly than is possible on the acoustic harp. Within the three sections, you can adjust the frequencies and so also the tone.