Saturday, June 22, 2013

A Transcendence of Harps! or whatever the collective noun is

This afternoon brought a great novelty into my life -- an afternoon's recital of harp music, at the local library, played by youngsters under the tuition of  Oksana Kessous, a professional harpist newly in this area, but usually found performing in New York.  To find out more about her and see why I was impressed, go here.

Great fun to see the lineup of five  huge harps,
couldn't get them all into one shot, and hear the young players, the youngest a fifth grader who sounds, to this ear anyway, like a serious future harpist.

And I happened to be seated next to a visual artist I've been seeing at art events for years and never had the chance to talk with one on one.  Like me, she just went to the concert because of its novelty value, and stayed to enjoy it, and the reception afterwards

at which we chatted with the music director and congratulated the performers, before settling down to some serious cake and fruit consumption, and she gave  me her number in case either of us finds any other quirky fun outings to go to.

Meanwhile, back at the music:  very ambitious, ranging from Bach to Mozart, to Gluck, to Tchaikovsky, with other forays in between. The finale was a four part consort


of ballet music of Tchaikovsky, where the young players showed their teacher's chops as well as their own, by knowing how to look for and use each others' cues as they played, something a lot of amateur adult players often forget about.
  This event was a first of its kind, but I'm hoping it might become an annual event to look forward to -- I'd like



to see young performers advance and be joined by others.  Here teacher and students take their bow.

the lighting for these pics was very low ambient indoor, so bear with me, but you get the gist at least!

2 comments:

  1. I love harp music. You lucky thing.

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  2. My mother was a harpist in a symphony orchestra, and taught as well, so this brings back happy memories. Its lovely to know that children are still caught up with the magic of making music and giving pleasure to those who attend their concerts. Meeting others who share the same pleasures is an added bonus!

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Thank you so much for commenting! it means a lot to me to know you're out there and reading and enjoying.