I'm just back from the Edinburgh Harp Festival, having been for the first time ever.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it was lovely to catch up with the lovely folks from Pilgrims, Morleys and my new friends from Accusound who I met at a Jazz Harp workshop in Rotterdam. I recently bought a pickup for my harp from them, it's fantastic and I was keen to see them again to tell them how pleased I was with it. Oh... and I knew they are always good for biscuits :)
I saw some friendly faces from a Clarsach society weekend back in October when things were rather bleak - one particularly wonderful person was bowled over with the news of my audition and gave me the "eeeek, omg that's so exciting!" reaction I was hoping for!
I also made some new acquaintances - I was put up overnight by someone I'd never actually met, other than via the power of the internet. We shared many hours of harp chat and giggles over stupid orchestral parts and even more stupid conductors. I happened to sit down for lunch next to another lady who had moved to Glasgow from Wales many years ago, and we swapped numbers and she promised to help however she could, should I end up there later this year.
My week has been incredibly tiring - although I am out of the normal routine and drudge of the day job, it doesn't seem to have given me any energy back.
I did a gig at a restaurant in Woodbridge last night which was great fun (and rather silly towards the end, in a good way!). Today I listened to a couple of new Park Stickney CDs I bought in Edinburgh - they have inspired me to start thinking about a spot of composition. I've not done very much before so it will be exciting to have a go.
I'm looking forward to a long, lazy Easter weekend - I have a LOT of de-junking to do, shedding some things from the old life and preparing for a new one... possibly, if I practice hard and get through my audition!
What a small place the blog world is! I was intrigued by your user name on The Wind and the Wellies, and came here to find that you're a harpist who has just been to the Edinburgh Harp Festival. We live in Edinburgh, and my daughter plays the clarsach - her teacher is Isabel Mieras. She wasn't at the festival as such - a school orchestra and choir tour of Poland clashed with most of it - but we were at the fantastic Catriona Mackay/Chris Stout concert on Tuesday. Oh and as the support team (parents) we took her harp in for a service by the maker (Frank Sievert).
ReplyDeleteHope you had a good time at the Festival and sorry about the weather!
Hi Linda, great to hear from you! Sorry your daughter missed the festival but glad you were able to make it. I hope she appreciates her support team's efforts. Now I have students of my own, I am in total awe of all the hard work my own parents put into my harp studies!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the festival, couldn't get to some of the classes I wanted to do sadly, and also missed out on Edmar's concert which I was upset about, but it was really good to be surrounded by harps and harpists. The weather was a bit of a shocker but to be honest, I didn't really expect much else!! :)