Harpist in the Wild, Season 7! Plus Europe this fall – September newsletter

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A new season of Harpist in the Wild starts this Saturday! Tune in to watch the premiere with me!

This season (season 7) features episodes that I filmed in Australia and New Zealand in early 2024.

The season kicks off with an episode in a beautiful rainforest in Cairns, Australia, featuring Ylang Ylang, a gorgeous, meditative piece by harpist and composer Natalia Mann – who also helped to film this episode!

If you want to play Ylang Ylang yourself you can buy the PDF at Natalia’s website – and she’s even put it on sale until October 7th to celebrate Harpist in the Wild.

Thrilled to be releasing this season – hope you will enjoy episode one and look for episode two next week Saturday!

My Fall Schedule – Europe again

I’m headed back to Europe again this fall, performing my program The Harp Has a Story – which will include the premiere of a brand new composition!

I fly to Calgary, Alberta, on September 27th and perform there that evening, then a workshop and masterclass Sunday before flying out Sunday evening to Paris, France! Thanks to Deborah Nyack for organizing this Calgary stop, email her if you’re interested in participating in the Sunday workshop.

I don’t have any concerts planned in Paris, instead I will take the chance to visit various harp stores (and the Camac factory) and try out some harps, plus meet up with friends! Then I will take the train to Italy for concerts there and the main start of my tour.

Here’s a calendar, with more dates to be added very soon. From Italy I’ll mainly be in Belgium and Germany, but if you’re interested in organizing a concert where you live, feel free to email me!

My goal is to do several “life of a harpist” videos following along on my travels – stay tuned…

Three new Harp Tuesday videos

One of the pieces on my The Harp Has a Story program is Balakirev’s arrangement of Glinka’s song The Lark (I really love this piece, which is new to my repertoire).

In episode 303 I take a look at the opening page of The Lark and demonstrate how different fingerings can have a big effect on the type of sound you get – and in a relatively slow section one can search for the fingerings that best express the type of sound we want at that moment.

Episode 304 is a look at a delightful little piece called A Riddle from Betty Paret’s First Harp Book. It’s deceptively easy – with changing interval sizes and a thumb slide co-ordination offering a good challenge!

Episode 305 is a look at Samuel Milligan’s arrangement of “The Ashgrove” (Llwyn Onn) from his book Medieval to Modern, Volume 2. This was a piece I learned when I was fairly new to the harp and I loved the excitement of the 2nd page and all the fast 8ths notes :)

 

My favourite photos this year from May

I recently posted my favourite photos that I took in May – I still have June, July, and now August to catch up on, but in the meantime enjoy some very cute wild rabbits (and more).

That’s all for now – thanks as always for reading!

Cheers,
Josh