The Edinburgh Branch of The Clarsach Society is providing follow-on classes for people who have attended beginner and post-beginner courses at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival.

Dates: Saturday 28th April & Saturday 12th May plus Branch rehearsal on Saturday 9th June

Tutor: Heather Yule

Venue: Craiglockhart Parish Church, Craiglockhart Avenue, Edinburgh EH14 1HS

Classes will run at a relaxed pace with the aims of consolidating technique, improving confidence and having a bit of fun. There is no requirement to read music.

There will be separate children and adult classes and harps can be supplied.

Children’s tutorial:   2:00pm – 2:55pm      £19 for three lessons

Adult’s tutorial:        3:00pm – 4:30pm      £25 for three lessons

For more information or to register your interest, download this form or contact Stephanie Harrison, email: steph [at] phantassie [dot] co [dot] uk

Also joining Gwen and Maya on the evening is NAMO bringing together the African Kora, Guitar and Viola d’amore as well as the master of cross rhythms, Edmar Castaneda in a fusion of Colombian dance, Latin jazz, flamenco flourishes and Afro-cuban bass lines – a world of music in himself!

Congratulations Alexander!

Sally Beamish, composer of Seavaigers - commissioned by EIHF and Celtic Connections – is BBC Radio 3′s “Composer of the Week”. Listen to Sally as she talks to Donald Macleod about her life as a musician and composer, working in Scotland over the last 25 years.

Seavaigers was commissioned by the Edinburgh International Harp Festival and Celtic Connections with support from Creative Scotland.  It’s second performance will be at the Harp Festival on 3 April. Sally will also share insights on her inspiration to write Seavaigers at an informal workshop that morning.

Each episode is available online for 7 days after broadcast - click on the links below to listen.

Early Works - Monday, 27 February at 12:00pm and 6:30pm
Sally Beamish tells Donald Macleod about her earliest commissions.

Music of Others - Tuesday, 28 February at 12:00pm and 6:30pm
Donald Macleod talks to Sally Beamish about her music based on works by other composers.

Poetry and Literature - Wednesday, 29 Feb at 12:00pm and 6:30pm
Donald Macleod explores works by Sally Beamish that have been inspired by literature.

Scottish Influence - Thursday, 1 March at 12:00pm and 6:30pm.
Sally Beamish talks to Donald Macleod about the effect of moving to Scotland on her music.

Friends and Family - Friday, 2 March at 12:00pm and 6:30pm
Sally Beamish talks to Donald Macleod about works written for people close to her.

There will also be a session of Scottish Harp exams held at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival on Friday, 30th March.

The deadline for applications is 5th March 2012, and the schedules will be confirmed with applicants after this date.

For entry details, visit the Scottish Traditional Music Graded Exams website.

Working in consultation with Scottish Music staff and specialist from across Scotland, the programme acknowledges the value of Scotland’s traditional music to its contemporary culture and identity, and seeks further to strengthen traditional music’s ties to education and lifelong learning

Unlike other music exam programme, the Scottish Traditional Music Graded Exams are specialist-based – meaning a harp candidate is assessed by a harp examiner.

And you do not have to read music to take the exams: the syllabus offers the choice between reading music for assessment or playing back by ear.

As a tool for tutors and learners, of all ages and abilities comparable in its grading to classical music exams, the exam provides:

• an escalator for young, aspiring traditional musicians who wish to widen their scope of opportunities;
• a basis for professional development among traditional Scottish music educators and non-specialist teachers looking to gain further experience of traditional Scottish music;
• a firmer establishment of traditional music tuition in Scotland’s educational curricula; and parity of esteem with the classical idiom.

Seavaigers was commissioned by the Edinburgh International Harp Festival and Celtic Connections with support from Creative Scotland.  It’s second performance will be at the Harp Festival on 3 April. Sally will also share insights on her inspiration to write Seavaigers at an informal workshop that morning.

By Sue Wilson
Published in the Scotsman on Tuesday 24 January 2012

The first half of this intriguingly contrasted programme, broadly linked by northerly association, featured the world premiere performance of Sally Beamish’s Seavaigers, a three-movement concerto for string orchestra collaboratively composed with its soloists,

Shetland fiddler Chris Stout and Dundee-born harpist Catriona McKay, and bearing the old Scottish name for North Sea voyagers.

With the dozen members of the Scottish Ensemble, directed by Jonathan Morton, closely clustered around this central pairing , the music delivered a thrilling succession of vivid, overlapping sonic impressions: choppy waters, shipboard bustle, the play of sun and clouds on white-capped waves; moonlit calm, wraiths of sea-mist, the sirens’ call and the song of the whale. Undercurrents of jazz, swing, funk and gypsy influence were discernible, as the piece steered its course between traditional Scottish waters and more turbulent contemporary horizons, at one point cheekily echoing the Jaws theme tune.

By Kate Molleson
Published in the Herald on Tuesday 24 January 2012

The main event here was the premiere of a new work written by Sally Beamish for the combined forces of fiddler Chris Stout, harpist Catriona McKay and the strings of the Scottish Ensemble.

The three-movement Seavaigers (Seafarers) takes inspiration from the stretch of water between Stout’s native Shetlands and McKay’s hometown of Dundee; as Stout put it, “sometimes stormy, sometimes calm”.

The piece is so utterly tailor-made it could never be played by anyone else. Beamish takes up the trademark Stout/McKay sound world – fierce muscularity, spare and sweet lyricism – and she leaves plenty of room for improvisation, too. The Scottish Ensemble, luxury backing band if ever there was one, mostly adds textural support and the odd passage of doubling on unison violins. It’s lovely stuff and superbly delivered, but Beamish only gently pushes the scope at her end – maybe she was reluctant to impose “classical” confines on two soloists who are both masterful composers in their own right.

The rest of the set was music from the duo’s 2010 album White Nights, sounding gorgeously lived-in and still totally fresh. Added string backing traded the album’s intimacy for a more expansive if heavier sound; even so, and despite too much amplified reverb on the clarsach and fiddle, the musical chemistry centre-stage was electrifying.

Corrina Hewat’s six-harp suite – featuring acoustic, electric and wire-strung harps – brilliantly encapsulates the diverse energies of the contemporary Scottish harp revival… so if you’re in the area, pop in, we’d love to see you there.