A rather belated Happy New Year, I can’t believe we’re already close to February! Some rather interesting times we’re living in – I hope you’re keeping safe and well.
(This was originally sent out to my newsletter subscribers – you can become one by signing up here).
In Victoria my mood has been lifted by a week of sunshine. After what felt like endless weeks of rain (and when it wasn’t raining, it was cloudy) we finally got to see the sun! Very welcome, and I’m also enjoying the sun setting a little bit later every evening.
For 11 years now I’ve been welcoming in the new year by doing an improvisation on January 1st. I just wrote a blog post about that experience – Rituals, Improvisation, and Dance Like Nobody’s Watching…
You can listen to this year’s improv here.
A big thank you to everyone who attended my December 20th concert, either online or in-person. It was another very rainy day that day, and yet somehow every time I had to move my harp it stopped raining briefly! I was trying out a venue I’d only been to once before, many years ago (to watch “Kafka the musical”…). It’s a small theatre that is part of a local community arts centre and turned out to be perfect for this event.
Having theatre lighting and a nice black background made for some wonderful visuals for the live-stream. A huge thank you to my brother, artist Noah Layne, for running the live-stream, including switching between the three different camera angles:
The concert raised nearly $450 for one of my local food banks – thank you again to everyone who attended!
What’s Ahead in 2026?
A month from now I’m headed to Australia! I’ll be there for two months, starting in Melbourne on February 27th, tutoring at Harp Island in Tasmania after that, and than lots of further adventures and concerts! I will send out a newsletter with all the dates and info for my Aussie tour next week – stay tuned.
One Harp World, Toronto, July 28-August 3.
The World Harp Congress joins forces with the American Harp Society for this week of concerts and events. I’ll be there for the whole thing and I’ll be performing a program of my own compositions on Wednesday, July 29th. Looking forward to seeing some of you there!
Sheet Music Sale
Looking for a challenge in the new year? My two Transcriptions for Lever Harp books are filled with beautiful, challenging music and they’re currently on sale until the end of January.
Or if you play pedal harp and want to tackle some new music in the new year, my composition Passage is also on sale.
Two new Harp Tuesday episodes
The final Harp Tuesday episode of 2025 was a look at a simple and beautiful piece called Shepherd’s Cradle-Song from Betty Paret’s First Harp Book.
And the first episode of 2026 was a look at dotted rhythms and dotted notes – what are they? And how to play them!
I will write again soon! Thanks as always for reading :)
Cheers,
Josh