DePauw Hosts National Harp Finals & Free Day of Music Instruction, June 3-5
May 31, 2016
The DePauw University School of Music hosts the national finals of the American Harp Society Foundation’s Anne Adams Awards and Grandjany Memorial Award competitions, June 3 & 4. For local music lovers that means some stellar international harpists will be offering free concerts at the Green Center this week -- along with a free day of music instruction on June 5 at Music on the Square.
The event is taking place in Greencastle thanks to Alexandra Perdew (pictured at top), a 2000 DePauw graduate and a member of the American Harp Society Foundation board.
On Friday, June 3 at 7:30 p.m., the brilliant Canadian harpist Caroline Lizotte will 
take the stage in Thompson Recital Hall. Internationally renowned as both a performer and as author of some of the most influential harp repertoire of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, she will present “Lizotte Plays Lizotte” at the conclusion of the initial day of competition at the Green Center.
On Saturday at 7:30 p.m., again in Thompson Recital Hall, the virtuoso Russian harpist Sasha Boldachev (seen below right), winner of the British Brilliant Prodigies Award and the European Foundation for Culture’s ProEuropa Award, will perform. Included on Boldachev’s program will be major works from classic Russian repertoire by Glinka, Mussorgsky, Rubinstein, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky, which he will expand with some of his own arrangements for the culminating concert at the close of the Adams and Grandjany competitions.
If you’ve ever admired the heavenly 
sound of harp and wondered how to play one, a free day of music instruction will follow the national finals during Harp Day@M2 on June 5. Nine harpists -- including co-director Perdew, her former teacher DePauw music professor Harriet Thompson Moore, Sasha Boldachev, Robbin Gordon-Cartier, Alice Keene, Carrie Kourkoumelis, Eileen Mason, Patty Adams Harris, and Roland H. Ferrer -- will offer instruction in a wide range of harp styles at Music on the Square (21 N. Indiana Street, on the courthouse square).
The program, “Harp: The Universal Instrument,” which begins at 10 a.m. and concludes 3:30 p.m. and is co-spondored by the
American Harp Society, Inc. the American Harp Society Foundation, DePauw University, Lyon & Healy Harps, SalviHarps, and the Vanderbilt Music Company. Throughout the day participants will learn techiniques from several traditions, including a tango, a gospel tune, and a classical cannon.No experience is necessary to participate in HarpDay@M2. All ages and skill levels welcome and instruments will be provided.
For the full program of instruction, visit music.depauw.edu.
All three American Harp Foundation events, June 3–5, are free and open to the public.
Back