If you’re near Lindau, Germany, come spend some time with me this coming weekend, September 30th, 2023. I’m doing a full day Saturday workshop and a half day workshop on Sunday – details here.
And Friday, Sept 29, I’m performing a special duet concert with Lena Rummel which will be live-streamed so that you can hear it no matter where you live! Details and tickets here.
RSVP to annalisa@salviharps.com Thanks to Adriano Sangineto for setting this up! (Check out my instagram for a clip of an improv session with the two of us).
Hello from Rome! A busy day today, with the September sessions of Harp Tuesday Weekends starting in a little under 6 hours from now, plus the launch of Season 5 of Harpist in the Wild!
There’s still time to join in for Harp Tuesday Weekends, with four 1 hour sessions every Saturday, Sep. 2 through Sep. 23rd. The two main things we’ll focus on are arpeggios and learning Bach’s beautiful Gavotte en Rondeau (with versions for lever or pedal harp). Plus etudes and more (for example today I will talk a bit about performing).
Details at www.joshlayne.com/weekends – see you soon!
Welcome to season 5 of Harpist in the Wild! This season will feature episodes filmed in New Zealand, Australia, and Japan. 9 episodes in total, with a new episode premiering every Saturday.
I will be releasing the episodes in the order that they were filmed, save for this very first episode (premiering today). I wanted to start with one of my own compositions as the final episode of this season will also feature one of my compositions.
So I will start with Forgotten Summer, filmed atop a boulder near Horsham, Australia, before heading to New Zealand with next week’s episode to pick up the start of my travels from earlier this year.
Meanwhile I’m having an amazing time in Italy, including doing a last minute concert at a wonderful courtyard location on Wednesday:
And yesterday taking my little Harp E to film out and about in Rome with many good adventures:
I will write again soon, thanks as always for reading!
Cheers,
Josh
I just posted some photos from Italy to my Patreon (viewable by anyone).
Four Saturdays, Sep 2- 23. I’ll be doing these sessions “on-the-road”, so to speak, from Europe! The sessions will include a focus on arpeggios and on learning a piece by Bach. I hope you can join in – sign-up here.
I landed in Rome yesterday after a full day of travel – the start of my fall 2023 European adventures!
I’ve just updated my website with info about a full day workshop on October 14th in Werne, Germany plus a couple of concerts on Oct 13 and 15. Futher additions to my calendar coming soon :)
I’m so excited to finally start releasing the footage I recorded on my travels earlier this year.
The first episode of season 5 will be published on YouTube on Saturday, September 2, with weekly videos following.
This season was filmed during my time in New Zealand, Australia, and Japan. There will be nine episodes – in chronological order as they were filmed (New Zealand, Australia, Australia/Tasmania, Japan) save for the very first episode, which will feature my composition Forgotten Summer and which was filmed in Australia.
I can’t wait to share – I hope you’ll enjoy this season!
That’s all for now – thanks as always for reading and I will write again soon.
Cheers,
Josh
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The Andante from Bach’s 4th Organ Sonata.
I fell in love with this piece a couple of years ago and I find it especially mesmerizing to play – once it finishes I just want to start playing it all over again again! The endless Bach progressions are so satisfying. I hope you enjoy!
By this time next week I will be in Rome, Italy! I’m headed to Europe again this fall, traveling, performing, and recording Harpist in the Wild.
I’ll be visiting friends in Italy, from there I’ll spend September in Slovenia. Then I’ll make my way through Austria to Lindau, Germany, near Switzerland.
The weekend of September 29 to October 1st I’m giving a series of workshops in Lindau, organized by Lena Rummel. Limited space, a few spots still available – sign up here.
I’ll be spending October primarily in Germany, with potentially a visit to the Netherlands as well as a few other small excursions. I’m still organizing events, more to be posted soon!
October 28 and 29 I will do a weekend of workshops and a concert in Hannover for the Niedersachsen Harfenakademie – details and sign up here.
Are you in Germany, the Netherlands, or somewhere nearby? Want me to come to your hometown? Find out how you can help here.
UK FANS: If there’s enough interest I’m considering coming to the UK at the start of November for a week before I fly home. Let me know if you’d be up for organizing a concert or workshop!
The program I’m touring includes some old favourites (Handel’s Concerto for Harp, Smetana’s The Moldau) as well as TWO pieces that are new to my repertoire – Chopin’s Prelude No. 15 (“Raindrop”) and Henriette Renié’s stunning Piece Symphonique. I can’t wait to perform them.
Earlier this week I posted an episode looking at how to play the glisses in Betty Paret’s Swinging from her First Harp Book.
The inaugural 4-week Harp Tuesday Weekends series finished last week. I will be running another 4 week session starting September 2nd (including Zoom “break-out” rooms afterwards for a chance to socialize; a big hit when we tried them out the last two weeks!). More info coming very soon.
And Season 5 of Harpist in the Wild is almost ready to go! So you’ll be hearing a lot from me over these next few weeks.
Thanks as always for reading, and I’ll leave you a little bit of heron ballet :)
Cheers,
Josh
I’ve just arrived in Otorohanga, New Zealand, a small town halfway down the North Island and close to the west coast. I’m gearing up for the last part of my tour, starting with a concert here in Otorohanga this coming Sunday, Feb. 26 at 2:30pm at St. Bide’s church (tickets at the door, just show up!).
Then I drive south along the west coast to New Plymouth, for a concert on Wednesday, March 1st at 4th Wall Theatre, details on their website. From there I drive across the breadth of the north island to do a concert in Whakatāne for Music Whakatane on Friday, March 3rd.
Finally, from there I drive up the east coast, getting close to Auckland again, to perform in Thames for the Thames Music Group on Sunday, March 5th.
If you’re in New Zealand or have friends here, spread the word and I hope to see you at a concert!
If you’re not in New Zealand you’ll have a chance to hear me play this weekend! I’m going to live-stream the concert here in Otorohanga. In New Zealand the concert takes places at 2:30pm on Sunday, Feb, 26th, but if you’re in North America the concert will happen on Saturday, Feb. 25 at 5:30pm PST/8:30 pm EST
If you’re in Europe unfortunately the concert start time is 2:30am CET Sunday morning (Feb. 26th). If you feel like staying up super late on Saturday night you can catch it live (will be about 80 minutes in length) but if not there will be a replay available :) (This holds true no matter where you are – if you can’t watch it live you can always watch the replay).
Tickets at my online store.
Hope to see you this weekend – whether in-person or online! Will write more soon with further adventures.
Cheers,
Josh
Hello from New Zealand! I’ve been here nearly three weeks and am having an amazing time :) I wanted to write to give you a recap of what I’ve been up to!
Saturday, January 28th I took the short flight over from Victoria to Vancouver (my flight ended up delayed and I was worried about missing my connection, but it worked out fine) and then the loooong 14 hour flight from Vancouver to Auckland.
This was actually the first time I’ve flown west from Victoria and the longest single flight I’ve been on to date. At the same time, going east always involves multiple connections and total travel time can approach 24 hours (to Rio de Janeiro for example). So despite the long flight this felt like a direct trip, and certainly one time when living on the west coast is a huge advantage over people travelling to New Zealand from the east coast of North America or from Europe…
I don’t tend to sleep well on airplanes, but since the flight left at midnight I was pretty tired and managed to snatch a reasonable amount of sleep. New Zealand is only 3 hours behind Victoria – just an extra day ahead! (I left on Saturday, arrived Monday morning. Sunday magically disappeared) so adjusting to the time change was actually thankfully easy.
Before actual start of Harp Fest NZ I had a solo concert at Lewis Eady – a piano and harp showroom and store. Full house and an enthusiastic audience! Before my last piece on the program (perennial favorite The Moldau) I mentioned how special it is to be performing live again – I haven’t done that many in-person performances since the pandemic and I actually found myself getting choked up a bit – didn’t expect that but a reminder of how special and powerful sharing music together can be.
Friday was the start of the festival, with a special concert featuring performances by Felice Pomeranz, Helen Webby, Adriano Sangineto, Esther Swift, Amanda Whiting, and myself.
Saturday through Monday I taught 3 workshops, including presenting “Practice Strategies” with my student Victoria Johnson, one of the harp fest committee member who had joined me on the flight from Vancouver!
Sunday Mary O’Neill was supposed to perform as part of a shared afternoon concert with Elizabeth Volpé Bligh (also from Vancouver!) but Mary had been bumped from her flight and had to miss the festival (yikes :( ) so I joined Elizabeth for an all Canadian composers concert (I played my Uncharted Shores and Nordic Spaces on lever harp and then switched to pedal harp for Passage).
(warming up before the concert!)
I also found time to film the outro to the final episode of this season of Harpist in the Wild!
Then just like that, the festival was over! Tuesday I attended a pedagogy workshop by Katryna Tan as she talked about what she’s done creating Rave Harps in Singapore. Then a few days by the beach plus working with local students before flying to Christchurch and the South Island.
I feel very lucky – as you may have seen in the news, New Zealand has suffered through some recent extreme weather events. Had my initial flight to Auckland been a day or two earlier the airport would still have been flooded and no international flights were landing! Auckland and area suffered from a “atmospheric river” – a huge dump of water in a very short time (My province of BC experienced something similar a few years ago that caused huge damage). When I was picked up at the airport I was told that a few days earlier people were able to swim in the road on which we were currently driving…
Then leaving for the South Island when I did I dodged the cyclone that again affected Auckland and north of Auckland in particular. Tough times for New Zealand :( My heart goes out to all the affected by the cyclone.
In Christchurch I had a chance to take a cruise at Akaroa to see Hector’s Dolphins (and more) before performing at the Nut Point Centre outside of Christchurch. A pretty cool venue and another very enthusiastic crowd. Then a chance to drive on the “wrong” side of the road up the coast to Ruby Bay. For this I’d rented a lever harp (big thanks to Helen Webby for sorting me out with harps for the South Island. This lever harp was made by her brother Kim, who makes amazing pedal harps).
Fun to do a lever harp concert! Played many of the pieces you’ll have heard on various Harpist in the Wild episodes :) Another cool venue – quite small but with proper tiered seating and theatre lighting, etc.
Then a few days to drive down the west coast of the island and sightsee. I never grew tired of watching the waves crashing along the shore. Spent a magical evening photo waves and sunset at a spectacular rocky location.
And now I’m getting ready to fly back to Auckland and prepare for an action packed week – starting the 26th I have 4 more public concerts and 2 private concerts before I bid Adieu to New Zealand and fly to Australia on March 7th!
I’ve posted a bunch of photos from my trip here – check it out. I look forward to sharing more of my adventures with you soon – thanks as always for reading!
Cheers,
Josh
