The 23^rd Annual  Historical Harp Society

in collaboration with

The Madison Early Music Festival

at University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin

Bill Taylor, Artistic Director

Egberto Bermudez, Conference Director

BabZ Schilke, HHS President

Conference Schedule          Workshop Schedule         Faculty Biographies        Enrollment Form

Madison Early Music Festival and Affiliated Events

The Madison Early Music Festival (MEMF) features a broad selection of classes in early music; registrants in the Historical Harp program may cross-register in other classes at MEMF and combine classes into one schedule.  The theme for the entire festival in 2006 is "Early Music from the Iberian Peninsula."  The festival features nightly concerts, lectures, and other events, and an all-festival concert project, ?Missa Sancta et Immaculata Virginitas and Motets - Music of Francisco Guerrero.?  A full list of Madison Early Music Festival classes, events, and concerts is available at http://www.dcs.wisc.edu/lsa/memf/ or from Program Director Chelcy Bowles at (608)263-6670 or music@dcs.wisc.edu

Registration

Registration forms for the conference and workshop can be downloaded from the MEMF website or received by contacting MEMF at the contact information above. 

Housing, Meals, and Parking Information

Will be sent to registrants ? see "General Information" on the MEMF website.

Travel Information and Directions to Registration

Will be sent to registrants.

Credit Options

Optional academic University of Wisconsin-Madison credit may be earned for HHS/MEMF Workshop participations.  See "General Information" on the MEMF website.

Historical Harp Society ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Thursday July 6^th ? Saturday July 8^th, 2006

Thursday, July 6^th at Chadbourne Hall Lobby

Friday July 7^th  at Morphy Recital Hall

Starting at 8:30  Registration at Strelow Lounge, behind Morphy stage,

garden level of Mosse Humanitise Building

9:00-10:00       An Approach to Continuo Instruction for Novices ? Alison Attar

Workshop instructors, small orchestra directors, and private teachers sometimes face a dilemma: either give some fairly quick and basic continuo training or exclude certain music or players.  It is in the interest of maximum early music exposure to develop a methodology for basic continuo instruction for harpists.  This paper will suggest a 12-step approach.

10:30-11:30       Size Matters:  The Use of Small Harps -- Bill Taylor

How small is small?  From the standpoint of a modern pedal harp player, anything without pedals is ?small."  From the vantage point of an early medieval player, anything beyond two octaves might have been unimaginable.  In the history of harps, there has never been a dominant standard size of instrument.  Even in modern times, harps continue to expand and contract.  Thoughts will be offered on the use of small harps for playing historical and traditional repertoires.

Lunch Break

1:00-2:00         The Harp Divas of Peru ? Laurita Pacheco
The Peruvian tradition of the harp as a traditional instrument, widely used in informal gatherings and at all sorts of events, has survived many centuries.  Recent international trends have affected traditional music, and women harp players and singers have become fashionable in certain urban popular circles. One of them, Ms. Pacheco, has become a celebrity in her country.  She will present a discussion of this movement as well as a sampling of her own music.

2:30-3:30           The Morphology of Early Harps: Implications for Harp Repertoire and Performance Practice
 ? Ron Cook

This presentation draws upon earlier research regarding the use of brays, the construction of the early medieval harp, and harp and lute duets in the 14th and 15th centuries. The presentation will review the information that has been gathered to date as to the size, shape, stringing, tuning and other physical characteristics of early harps in the 12th through 17th centuries and then consider the conclusions that can be drawn as to the probable repertoire and performance practices associated with these instruments.           

4:00-5:00           Baltic Zithers -- BabZ Schilke
This will be a short lecture with a hands-on workshop, beginning with a brief overview of the Baltic zither traditions from geographic, organologic and ethnomusicalogic perspectives.  This will be followed by a session on playing ancient melodies suitable for any psaltery or harp with 5 or more strings.  Learn runes tunes for kanteles.  Find out what that previous sentence means.  All harps welcome, all levels of players and listeners welcome.  A few small harps will be on hand to borrow.

Dinner Break

Saturday, July 8^th at Morphy Recital Hall

9:00-10:00         Spanish and Latin American Renaissance and Baroque musical practices: How far and how near? -- The case of the harp ? Egberto Bermudez
It is easily assumed that Latin American Renaissance and baroque musical practices reproduced European musical practices and that contemporary traditional music in the Americas can give us important hints about long forgotten European practices. In the light of the historical, musicological and ethnomusicological evidence available, and taking the harp as an example, this talk explores to what extent this assertion can be effectively supported.

10:30-11:30       Historical Harp Society Annual Meeting

12:00-2:00         Lunch Break/Workshop Registration Begins

2:00-3:00           MEMF Welcome and Orientation

3:00-4:15           First All-Festival Rehearsal

4:30                  Historical Harp Faculty Concert at Mills Concert Hall

featuring the historical harp faculty and guests

Evening          Pre-Concert Lecture, Concert (Baltimore Consort), and Reception

Madison Early Music Festival/Historical Harp Society

ANNUAL WORKSHOP

Saturday July 8^th ? Saturday July 15^th

Schedule and Class Descriptions

--            Schedule is tentative.  The Historical Harp Society reserves the right to substitute faculty or to change class or schedule offerings or the schedule due to extenuating circumstances.

--          Final schedule will be distributed at workshop registration.

Saturday, July 8^th 

12:00-2:00          Workshop Registration and Check-In

2:00-3:00            Welcome and Orientation

3:00-5:00            First All-Festival Rehearsal

Sunday, July 9^th ? Thursday, July 13^th  

Early Morning Classes: 8:30-9:30

Christa Patton -- Beginning Historical Harp
This class will provide an introduction to medieval and Renaissance music on historical harps. The class will include basic exercises and fun, simple tunes to allow rapid progress for beginners.  Basic harp technique as well as early fingerings for fingerpad style will be covered.

Bill Taylor ? Playing Sacred Songs from Medieval Spain on Harp
The class will examine playing both solo harp and group arrangements of melodies from the Cantigas de Santa Maria (late 13th century) and the Libre Vermell (late 14th century).  Dramatic, lively, and pious, these songs express a wide range of emotions which call to mind the colorful visual arts of medieval Spain.  By applying appropriate fingering to create rhetorical stress, players will learn to ?sing? expressively on the harp.

Mid Morning Classes: 9:45-10:45

Egberto Bermudez -- History of the Harp:  An Introduction
This course offers a survey of the main musicological and historical issues concerning the history of the harp from the medieval times to the 18th century.  It will consider the main sources (musical, historical, iconographic) based on which our historical discourse regarding this instruments has been created.  It will also consider the different musical repertoires associated with the variety of harps developed throughout this period.  All welcome.

Judy Kadar -- Harp Music of the Golden Age
The class will be a sampler of pieces from two 16th-century sources.  The Cancioniero de Palacio, c. 1500, contains polyphonic songs appropriate for arrangements with solo harp, harps as accompaniment and harp in ensemble.  The Libro de Cifra Nueva para Tecla, Harpa y Vihuela (Book of New Notation for Keyboard, Harp and Vihuela), by Luis Venegas de Henestrosa, 1557, contains arrangements of songs as well as purely instrumental pieces.  We will learn the notation as well as using modern transcriptions.

Late Morning Classes: 11:00-noon

Egberto Bermudez -- Latin American Music and the Harp
The harp was one of the most important continuo instruments in Spain and Latin America from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Spanish and Latin American music archives contain thousands of villancicos and songs featuring charming texts and lively musical structures which constitute a very important part of the historical harp repertoire.  This course introduces this repertoire for singers and players of the single rank and cross-strung harps. Other continuo instruments are welcome.

Christa Patton -- Spanish Harp Music for Early and Lever Harpists
Enrich your collection of tunes with popular melodies originally written for the Spanish harp of the 17th century.  This spicy yet elegant repertoire with its soave dance rhythms, sumptuous harmonies, and ornamental effects such as the arpeado, or the Spanish arpeggio, and Spanish trilli give the music its period-specific sound.  Pieces for both the chromatic and single row harp will be taken primarily from the music of Lucas Ruiz de Ribayaz (1677) and Diego Fernandez de Huete (1702), whose retrospective collections give us some of the clearest indications about harp music and its execution that exist from the 17th century.  Skills in reading Spanish harp tablature and Spanish fingerings will also be covered. 

Lunch Break: noon-1:30

Afternoon Small Ensemble Classes: 1:30-3:00

Judy Kadar & Egberto Bermudez -- Sephardic Secular Music:  Music of the Jews of Spain
This repertoire, mainly a living performance tradition, is explored in the context of Spanish European and Arabic practice of the 15th and 16th centuries.  Issues will include reconstruction, function, musical influences, style and choice of voices and instruments.  All instruments and voices welcome.

Christa Patton -- Harp Accompaniment in 17th-century Spanish Song
The role of the harp in the Spanish continuo ensemble will be explored in this class which bases its work on the Libro de Tonos en Cifra de Arpa, a manuscript of theatre songs from the later half of the 17th century in Spain.  These pieces in harp tablature give us examples of actual written-out harp accompaniments to popular Spanish songs and will form the basis of our work in developing an approach to the harp's own accompanimental style which, in the theatre ensemble of the Spanish Baroque period, was often in combination with the guitar.  The class will occasionally combine with the class devoted to songs by Jose Marin for voice and guitar to form a full Spanish continuo ensemble.  An intermediate technique on the harp is required.

Bill Taylor -- Harp Music from the Renaissance in Scotland
A variety of tunes from early 17th-century lute, fiddle, vocal and keyboard sources present sprightly dance tunes, Highland airs and vigorous variation sets.  Instruction in authentic decoration, careful attention to fingering and application of suitable harmony will give students a window into the Scottish musical dialect.  For all harps; wire-strung and bray harps are especially welcome.

All-Festival Rehearsal: 3:30-5:00

Dinner Break, Evening Lectures and Concerts, and other evening events, including:

Alfonso's Book of Games: informal late evening sessions with Bill Taylor (Barnard Hall Lounge)
We tend to remember Alfonso X mostly for collecting the Cantigas de Santa Maria.  He was also a keen games player who ordered an extensive illuminated manuscript to be made, with chess problems and rules for both dice games and backgammon.  The title page states:  "Juegos diuersos de Axedrez, dados, y tablas con sus explicationes, ordenados por mandado del rey don Alonso el sabio," completed in 1283.  As time allows, we will try our hand at several dice games known to Alfonso and his court, hopefully over a long drink!  Students are asked to bring 3 dice with them.

Friday, July 14^th and Saturday, July 15^th

All-Festival rehearsals and performances as well as other concerts!

Short Faculty Biographies

Egberto Bermudez, Past-President of the Historical Harp Society, studied early music performance practice and musicology at the Guildhall School of Music and University of London Kings College.  Currently he is Professor of the Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas at the National University in Bogota, Colombia.  He has published a number of works on Colombian music history, traditional and popular music, and musical instruments.  He is the founder and director of ?Canto,? an ensemble specializing in Spanish and Latin American Renaissance and Baroque repertoire.  In 1992, with Juan Luis Restrepo, he established the Fundacion de Musica, an institution dedicated to disseminate the results of research about the Latin American musical past to the scholarly community and the general public.

Judy Kadar, under the auspices of Amherst Early Music, founded and directed the First Annual Historical Harp Conference and Workshop in 1984. She directed this event through 1991 when the American Historical Harp Society was formed. She is also one of the founding members of the International Historical Harp Society. She studied harp at Mannes with Lucile Lawrence, holds a M.F.A. in the Performance of Medieval and Renaissance Music from Sarah Lawrence College, and has been in demand as faculty at early music workshops since the late 70's. She lives in Berlin, Germany, where she teaches harp, historical harp, and ensembles in medieval and renaissance music. She has had multiple theater engagements with renowned German directors, co-directs the medieval and renaissance music ensemble ?Collage,? and frequently concertizes throughout Europe. This year, Collage received a grant from the Hauptstadt-Kulturfond (capital city cultural fund of Berlin) for a new multi-media production of the Roman de Fauvel called "How the Donkeys Got Power."  Collage holds an annula concert series at Zitadella Spandau.  Collage has released the recordings Blozen (a sampler from Neidhart von Reuental through Claude Gervaise), Musik auf Drie Richtungen (Sephardic, Arabic, and medieval music), and Die Juedin von Toledo (Sephardic music and the Cantigas de Santa Maria).  Ms. Kadar is also a member of ?duo citariste? and ?Jiddisches und Juedisches.?

Christa Patton has performed as baroque harpist most recently with the Toronto Consort, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, and Artek as will as productions of Monteverdi?s ?Ulisse?, ?Poppea?, and ?L?Orfeo? with the
New York City Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, and Opera Atelier.  She is a member of Piffaro the Renaissance Band and has also been a guest with Ex Umbris.  She can be heard with Piffaro and Ex Umbris on the Dorian label.  Christa has also toured the US, Europe and Japan with New York's Ensemble for Early Music with whom she has recorded "Istampitta" on the Lyrachord label. As an early harp clinician Christa has led workshops at the Madison Early Music Festival, Pinewoods Early Music Camp, and the Medieval Summer Institute at the Longy School of Music. A former Fulbright scholar, Christa studied the Italian baroque harp at the Civica Scuola di Musica in Milan, Italy with historical harp specialist, Mara Galassi.

Bill Taylor is a specialist in the performance of ancient harp music from Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and is one of very few players investigating these repertoires on medieval gut-strung harps, wire-strung clarsachs, and Renaissance harps with buzzing bray pins.  He has been resident in Scotland for many years, where he teaches and performs with the Highland early music group Coronach and the duo The Art of Musick.  A former president of the International Historical Harp Society, he also plays with the Belgian Late-Medieval ensemble Quadrivium and accompanies the Scottish female vocal quartet Canty.  Bill has recorded several CDs with Canty, including music by Hildegard of Bingen and music from the feast day of St Brigit of Ireland; they plan to issue a CD of music for a medieval Scottish Lady Mass in 2006.  Bill teaches community music classes through Fèis Rois and is a guest lecturer at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow.  As a teacher of historical harps, he is frequently invited to lead workshops in the UK, Europe, and the USA, including regular appearances at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival.

Program # 370207