Author: Rachel Hair

EIHF YOUTH OUTREACH 2024 – 2 FREE EVENTS, with 3 fantastic tutors: Adriano Sangineto , Elinor Evans and Neil Wood.

To sign up to these events please email office@harpfestival.co.uk

1- THE DREAM MAKERS:  PRE FESTIVAL EIHF YOUTH OUTREACH

Do you know any school aged harp players? This year’s EIHF outreach is a two day project bringing together young harpers of all ages to take part in a performance of The Dream Makers, a magical suite of newly created music based upon the traditional tale of the same name. The story will be told live by storyteller Shona Cowie and will intertwine music performed by the EIHF Junior Ensemble, led by Neil Wood and Elinor Evans. 

The project is open to all school aged harpers of any level of experience provided they have access to an instrument and some previous experience of playing. It is FREE to attend for participants. 

Music will be distributed at the beginning of March for participants to familiarise themselves with prior to rehearsals. During rehearsals participants will have the opportunity to contribute to the creative process and shape the performance. 

• Open to all school aged harp players
• Rehearsals: Thursday 4th April 10.30am – 3.00pm and Friday 5th April 10.30am – 3.00pm (please bring a packed lunch)
• Venue: Music School, George Watson’s College
• Performance: Friday 5th April 3.00pm-4.00pm (support by The Royal Celtic Society)
• Venue: Music School Auditorium, George Watson’s College
• Audience tickets: £8 for adults, free for under 18. Book via harpfestival.co.uk

The Dream Makers, Pre festival EIHF Youth Outreach is supported by: Tasgadh, Traditional Small arts grants

2 – EIHF YOUTH OUTREACH FOR HIGH SCHOOL AGE HARP PLAYERS

Young harp players of any style and of high school age (approx age 11-18) are invited to take part in an intermediate/advanced level workshop with Adriano Sangineto. It is FREE to attend for participants. 

An Italian virtuoso musician, Adriano is internationally recognised for his exceptional contribution to Celtic harp music. He’s taught several times for us at the EIHF and his classes are always popular – we are sure the youngster will love his teaching in this workshop!

• Open to all High school age harp players
• Workshop: 6th April, 4.30pm-5.30pm
• Venue: George Watson’s College, Edinburgh

Seachdain na Gàidhlig is Scotland’s nationwide language and culture week and takes place this week and lasts until Sunday 16th February. 
The theme for 2024 is ‘Your Language. Your Opportunity’ encouraging us to celebrate the ways we embrace Gaelic language and culture in our everyday life. Keep an eye our Facebook page where we’ll be sharing daily 9am videos and  “A’ toirt iomradh air saoghal na clàrsaich”  – talking all things clarsach! 

Interested in learning more Scottish Gaelic? We have 3 Come and Try Gaelic sessions at EIHF 2024 – each only £8!

COME & TRY GAELIC with Màiri Macleod
Saturday 6th April: 4.30pm-5.30pm
Monday 7th April :  1pm-2pm 
Tuesday 8th April :  9-10am 
Come learn some basic vocabulary and simple phrases that you can use around our festival and in different scenarios. 

BOOK HERE

The EIHF 2024 box office is open!!

CLICK HERE TO BOOK

Please be aware of scammers that tend to plague social media with fake sales… this website is the official EIHF box office.

We can’t wait to see you in April!

The 2024 brochure is available to view and download online HERE. This is the best way to find out what happens at our festival.

INSIDE: concert/course/workshop listings & details, artist & tutor biographies, course level guide, exhibitor list, venue guide, how to get more out of your visit to the EIHF and much more!

Paper copies will be available in Edinburgh, from branches of The Clarsach Society and at the festival.

IMPORTANT: The online box office will open on Wednesday 31st January at 10am. Please don’t try to book before then, as it will not be possible.

The Clarsach Society and the Edinburgh International Harp Festival are proud to announce that the 2023 winner of the Iain Macleòid Young Composer Award is Donnchadh Mac Aodha.

Harp player Donnchadh Mac Aodha is a composer and multi-instrumentalist from Dundalk Co.Louth, Ireland. 

Currently studying composition under the direction of John Godfrey as part of his BMus degree at University College Cork, Donnchadh is both a traditional Irish and classical musician and finds himself most at home with these genre allowing his bi-musical upbringing to influence his works. In particular, he is drawn to the Irish language and deals with ideas of belonging and identity in his music. 

Already a prize winning composer, having taken away honours from the New Ross Piano Festival and the West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival Composition Competition, The Clarsach Society are thrilled to award him The Iain Macleòid Young Composer Award. 

We look forward to hearing the premiere of his award-winning composition Ambaist at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival in April. 

The 43rd Edinburgh International Harp Festival will take place from the 5th -9th April, in George Watson’s College, Edinburgh. We’ve been working hard to organise a wonderful festival for you to enjoy in April and next month we’ll be ready to share with you the full details of the 2024 concerts, courses (including a small selection of online zoom courses).

However, we have some news to share with you now. We’ll be updating this post on week days (until 21st Dec) with who you can expect to see performing and tutoring at the festival. Read on to discover more…

• Our box office will open in January.
• Full information on all concerts/courses/workshops will be available in January.
• Harp hire (for those of you coming from afar) will open on the 10th January.

2024 PERFORMERS:

• ADRIANO SANGINETO (ITALY) 
• ALICE GUSE (SCOTLAND)
• ANNE-MARIE O’FARRELL (IRELAND)
• CHRIS STOUT & CATRIONA MCKAY (SCOTLAND)
• DIEGO LAVERDE ROJAS (COLOMBIA)
• ELEANOR DUNSDON & GREGOR BLACK (ENGLAND/IRELAND)
• ELINOR EVANS (SCOTLAND)
• RHONA SMITH & STEPHANIE HUMPHREYS with THE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA
• INGRID HENDERSON & IAIN MACFARLANE with MARGARET STEWART (SCOTLAND)
• JAMES RUFF (USA)
• MARIA MONK (SCOTLAND)
• SIXTO CORBALAN & PEDRO MARTÍNEZ (PARAGUAY)
• SUE ROTHSTEIN (ENGLAND)
• SUNITA STANESLOW (USA)
• TARRAN featuring MALACHY ARNOLD (SCOTLAND)
• RNCM HARP ENSEMBLE

2024 COURSE TUTORS:

• ADRIANO SANGINETO
• AILIE ROBERTSON
• ANNE-MARIE O’FARRELL
• BILL TAYLOR
• CATRIONA MCKAY
• CHARLOTTE PETERSEN
• DIEGO LAVERDE
• ELEANOR HETHERINGTON
• ELINOR EVANS
• FIONA RUTHERFORD
• HEATHER DOWNIE
• HEATHER YULE
• INGRID HENDERSON
• ISOBEL MIERAS
• JAMES RUFF
• MALACHY ARNOLD
• PEDRO MARTÍNEZ
• RACHEL HAIR
• ROSEMARY MCKERCHAR
• SIXTO CORBALAN
• SUE ROTHSTEIN
• SUNITA STANESLOW
• TONI RUSSELL
• WENDY STEWART

Hello everyone,

We know we’ve been a bit quiet lately – that’s because we’ve been busy planning our next festival!

We will begin announcing artists and tutors in December with full details of all courses/concerts/workshops available in January. Our box office will open shortly after that.

We hope you will join us in 2024. Put the dates in your diary – 5-9 April – as we can’t wait to reunite with you all for some happy harping times again in Edinburgh!

The EIHF

We’ve now uploaded our photos from the 2023 Edinburgh International Harp Festival onto the Gallery page of this website. We’d like to say a huge thank you to our photographer John Davidson for taking such great pictures, and providing a record of the festival for many years to come. We hope you enjoy looking at them.

THANK YOU to everyone who took part in the 42nd Edinburgh International Harp Festival…. performers, tutors, participants, audience members, harp exhibitors, ceilidh dancers and session players… what a wonderful celebration of all things HARP!

Keep an eye on the gallery page of this website as we be uploading photos from the festival over the next week.

NEXT YEARS DATES: 5 – 9 April 2024*

The 43rd Edinburgh International Harp Festival will take place over 5 nights and 4 days at George Watson’s College, Edinburgh.

*dates subject to change