Hello all,
Time to continue my wrap up of the Australian Harp Festival
that happened from 28th September to 1st October in
Adelaide, South Australia. You can read the first part here.
The other international star who came out for the Festival
was none other than the jaw droppingly good Catrin Finch. I’d heard and met her
a few years ago at the Llangollen Eistedfodd in Wales where she delighted the
hugely partisan audience not just with her playing but with her dress, which
featured a large red Welsh dragon wrapped around her torso.
As well as conducting a masterclass, Catrin played a recital at Elder
Hall late on the Sunday afternoon. Right from the first note of the first piece
(Bach/Grandjany’s Partita No 3) her technical prowess shone. How can fingers
move that fast? And accurately. This had ‘wow’ factor in spades.
The programme showed not just that she could play like nobody’s
business, but that she is also A1 when it comes to stage presence. There are
only so many players that can make Paul Patterson’s ‘Mosquito Massacre’ work so
convincingly, a piece where you have to be as much an actor as a musician. It
was originally composed for her, and you can tell why. She is a natural at playing
the harp while swatting at imaginary mosquitos.
The rest of the programme was really broad- everything from
Godefroid to Benjamin Britten with some Debussy and William Mathias thrown in
for good measure. It all just made you want to go home and practice scales.
Really fast.
One other international visitor was harp technician Liza
Jensen. Yep, a lady regulating harps. And she was great. Liza is a player as
well as a technician which meant she handled the harps with prowess and a
wrench with aplomb. And that can’t be said of everyone. I attended the pedal
harp maintenance workshop and resolved to never, ever attempt to change a pedal
rod myself, even though Liza kept assuring us it wasn’t as bad as it looked. I
beg to differ.
An abiding memory of the event was seeing her sit astride a
Salvi while putting some some pliers to work on the pedal mechanism. Wish I’d
got a photo of that one. Instead here’s one of her demonstrating knot tying to
an audience.
All up the Festival was a brilliant weekend of nerdy harp
talk which I really loved. So much went on I can’t report it all without
basically taking up so much of your time you may as well have come to the
weekend yourself. And who knows? Maybe I’ll see you at the next one!
P.S. For more pics swing over to my Facebook page.
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