Image courtesy of HarpSeminar.com

RABUN GAP, GA -- For the twelfth consecutive year, talented young harpists from around the world will travel to the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School for the Young Artist’s Harp Seminar and Competition at the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee school. They will experience two weeks of intensive practice, coaching sessions with renowned instructors, workshops, harp ensemble, and concert performances. Harpists from around the world come to Rabun Gap, Ga., for the Young Artist’s Harp Seminar and Competition at the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee school; harpists will perform in concerts on July 6, 7, 12, and 13, 2013.

Concert performances will be on Saturday July 6 (8:00 p.m.), Friday July 12 (8:00 p.m.), and Saturday July 13 (2:00 p.m.). All concerts are open to the public at the school’s Dell and Robert Rearden Jr. Theater.

Former Principal Harp of the Toronto Symphony Judy Loman will return as 2013 YAHS Guest Artist. Ms. Loman is a world renowned harpist and is currently on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, PA. She will present a solo harp recital on Sunday July 7 (3:00 p.m.) at the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee school’s Dell and Robert Rearden Jr. Theater.

This event is open to the public along with two masterclasses featuring YAHS harp students on Monday, July 8 and Tuesday, July 9.

Now in its twelfth season, the Young Artist’s Harp Seminar is quickly receiving an international reputation as a training ground for talented harp students age 12–26. This summer, around 30 harpists will come from as far away as Australia, France, California, Nevada, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, Michigan, North Carolina, Florida, and of course Georgia to hone their skills, perfect their art, and spend time with like-minded students who share their passion for music and the harp. Faculty instructors and founders Susan Bennett Brady (Principal Harpist with the Atlanta Opera Orchestra; faculty, Columbus State University and Reinhardt University) and Kimberly Rowe (Founding Editor of Harp Column magazine; faculty, Temple University) credit the growing success of the program to Rabun Gap’s “beautiful, idyllic setting, which also has the perfect facilities necessary to accommodate lots of concert-grand harps.” Accommodating concert-grand harps is no easy task.

The instruments, each with 47 strings, stand over 6 ft. tall and weigh between 80–90 lbs. Since they can’t easily be checked onto an airplane, students traveling a distance rent their harps from the Atlanta Harp Center, one of only a handful of dealerships in the country that carry concert harps, most of which are manufactured in Chicago and overseas.

Published April 17, 2013