Behind the scenes on our Christmas CD recording

Last month we were honoured to be chosen for a Two Moors Festival Residency. A Residency usually takes the form of a period of intensive study where musicians can rehearse or practice without interruptions. This sort of freedom can be very difficult to find in the working world where everyday life and responsibilities get in the way, so an opportunity like this is every musician's dream.

In order to be eligible for one of these hotly contested opportunities, we had to have a project that we were working towards. Our Christmas CD recording provided the perfect vehicle, and so off to Devon we all trundled in our four estate cars, equipped with music stands, stools, harps and trolleys. Oh, and two babies, push chairs, toys, a high chair and a travel cot!

We spent the first day of the Residency rehearsing the 20 different Carols that we were going to record. Three of the carols were being performed with soprano as well as the four harps, and our fantastic soprano Helen Winter arrived in time for an evening rehearsal of her numbers (she also has the best surname ever, given what we were recording!). It was lovely to play in the large rehearsal space of the Two Moors Festival gallery as opposed to our usual four-harps-crammed-into-a-space-meant-for-one arrangement. We finally finished at 11pm and sank into peaceful slumbers dreaming of Holy Nights...

Our recording was scheduled to take place over the next two days and was being recorded by Patrick Allen of Opera Omnia. After a couple of hours of sound checks and tuning harps, we were satisfied we had the right balance of harps and voice and the real work could commence! Four hours later we had got the harp and soprano tracks in the bag, and after a swift break (and goodbye to Helen), we rearranged the set-up to suit the four harps on their own. Our only difficulty was that during rehearsal we had found the perfect layout for being able to see and hear each other clearly, but sadly this didn't work for Patrick's microphones. After a lot of harp shifting and seat adjustment we were finally able to compromise on a position which worked for both sound quality and also visual interaction.

One bonus of a Christmas recording is that all the pieces are relatively short so it is possible to do multiple recording takes without getting too fed up. All the Carols on the CD had been arranged by us, with the lion's share being undertaken by Harriet. It was very satisfying to be playing music specifically arranged for four harps, and also music that utilised many of the different sounds and effects that a harp can create (harmonics, xylophonic effects, percussion and glissandi). Amazingly (given the number), all the Carols had a unique feel to them, and between the different arrangements and arrangers, we encompassed everything from medieval music through to jazz and soft rock! By the end of day one we had recorded nine tracks and felt like we were well on our way.

Day two started with more harp tuning (sorry Patrick!) - harps do not have equal temperament in the same way as a piano, and so will sound slightly different in different keys (a harp that is perfectly in tune in a key with lots of flats in the key signature may not sound quite so good in a key with lots of sharps). This means that a large proportion of time during a recording is spent retuning to ensure the harps sound at their best - with four harps to tune, this inevitably means a LOT of tuning! We were pleased that we were able to maintain focus during the second day (no doubt helped by the peaceful setting and lack of mobile reception at the 2MF Residency site!) and we finished the final piece at about 9.30pm. Afterwards we all trouped back to our onsite Festival accommodation for a celebratory glass of champagne and a hearty supper. A well deserved rest and a Silent Night was had by all....

The final day of our Residency took the form of rehearsal and preparation for an evening concert, held in the Festival gallery. Despite it being the end of April, we decided to deviate from our 2013 season programme slightly and include some of the Christmas Carols we had just recorded. A fruitful decision, as we were rewarded with rapturous applause for our performances of Greensleeves, Gaudete, I wonder as I wander and Sussex Carol. In fact several audience members signed up straight away for our Christmas CD pre-order list!

In conclusion, it was a fantastic week of hard work from everyone involved, and we are confident that the finished CD will be everything we hoped it would be and more. We would also like to thank Patrick and Helen for being so patient with us and the eccentricities of our harps. Finally, we are extremely grateful to the Two Moors Festival for giving us the opportunity to record in such a lovely relaxed setting.

                                           
A photo of us rehearsing for the recording

Fundraising Auction

It has been a very busy first quarter of the year for 4G4H: we have auditioned a new member, performed several concerts together, done a high fashion photo shoot and recently recorded a Christmas album! Our latest project is a fundraiser for the new album - as all musicians know, it is a costly business recording a CD: the recording, engineer, equipment, art work, packaging and CD pressing don't come cheap.... 

To help with the costs, quartet member Keziah Thomas had the brilliant idea of a harp-related fundraising auction to help pay for our CD. The 'lots' range from a concert given by us, to individual lessons, workshops and 4G4H merchandise, so there is something there for everyone! More details on the auction can be found at 

32auctions.com/4Girls4Harps

We will be promoting the CD as part of a big Christmas tour in December this year. More information on concert dates and locations can be found on our website www.4girls4harps.com

We would be eternally grateful if those who read this could pass this on to anyone they think might be interested!

The show must go on

Musicians are some of the most dedicated people I know. One of the 'perks' of being self employed (as most musicians are) is that you can choose to work when it suits you. The reality is that musicians will take almost any work that comes in and nothing, bar World War III, will stop them fulfilling their working contracts. This invariably means working through sickness, holidays, intimate family events and even personal tragedies. I'm not necessarily saying that this is something to aspire to - afterall, everyone needs to have a work/life balance - but the saying 'the show must go on' really does apply to the performing arts.

Performers have had it ingrained in them from a very young age that their obligation to the audience is their greatest priority and that at all costs they must avoid dispelling the myth and magic of the evening by letting their audience down. For a dancer that might mean dancing on bleeding toes, for a musician it might mean struggling through horrendous flu in order to get up on stage and perform, all the while, a big smile plastered on their face masking their inner misery. As evidenced by the recent death of emminent conductor Sir Colin Davis, who was still seen on the podium aged 85, there is no retirement age for a musician. Plácido Domingo is still accepting operatic roles in his seventies and the great harpist Marisa Robles is still adjudicating and giving masterclasses at nearly 80!

Looking back over the years at 4 Girls 4 Harps' concert appearances, we have certainly applied this to our work ethic: both Harriet and Eleanor were performing with the group shortly after the birth of their children. In fact, Eleanor was so dedicated to fulfilling her concert engagements that she was playing in concert with us just over two weeks after the birth of her daughter (by cesarean section!). Before her son was 8 weeks old, Harriet had written and arranged several pieces for the group to perform that season and she had only finished writting her most recent composition - Elemental - a week before her son's due date!

For two years, Keziah commuted from New York to the UK in order to perform with the quartet - her plane fares cost more than the concert fees! We have battled through blizzards and gale force winds to perform - the audience of the five people who had managed to get to the concert were very appreciative of the special effort we had made on their behalf. Elizabeth has worked on every birthday for as long as she can remember and she is not letting her imminent wedding get in the way of performing with the group.

We do, of course, all have personal lives and friends and family who we very much enjoy spending time with, but our commitment to performing with the quartet, and also all our other harp related work, is a huge part of our lives, and we want to do the best we can to give our audiences the concerts they deserve. At the end of the day, playing the harp (or indeed any other instrument) is not just for Christmas (although we certainly look forward to the abundence of seasonal work....), it is a lifestyle commitment, and one we hope to still be doing when we are in our twilight years.

Romance, roses and ridiculously cold weather!

We had the most amazing day last week posing for the very talented photographer Shaneen Rosewarne Cox for our new publicity shots and Christmas album cover!

We were honoured to be wearing beautiful evening dresses for the shoot which were designed by internationally renowned fashion designer Johanna Hehir. Our hair was styled by the amazing Sarah of Sarah's Doowopdos and make up done by fab make up artist Christina Chrysanthou. We were very lucky to have the use of Shaneen's blogging partner Hayley's house to get ready in and had the bonus of an impromtu lesson from her in social media networking!

The day of the shoot was not what we had initially had in mind for the start of spring: arctic temperatures, snow and gale force winds do not mix well with notoriously unstable harps. However, we were excited by the possibilities this would afford us for the Christmas album cover so all was not lost.

We took the first series of photos outside in our beautiful chiffon dresses:

We think it is safe to say that we have never been so cold in our lives! We stuck at it for as long as we could but once Keziah was so cold she was unable to open her mouth to speak we thought it was a sign to head indoors to thaw out and set up some more shots with the harps.

We were using the village hall for our indoor shots and had a lot of fun coming up with some creative poses using the harps. We have always found it a challenge in the past to get a photo which includes all four harps and 4 girls in a way that is interesting to look at (four harps take up a lot of photo space!), so we were very pleased with the end result:

It was lovely and relaxing lying on the floor for these photos after having been so cold outside earlier in the day.

We then changed outfits for some atmospheric shots wearing dark blue romantic dresses standing behind some beautifully flickering silver candles. We ended the day with a final outfit change into shorter more informal dresses in wonderfully contrasting colours. We had so much fun we were even happy to brave the outdoors for one final shot:

First concert with our new member

We are looking forward to performing our first concert with new member Elizabeth Scorah at The Forge, Camden on Sunday 14 April 2013 at 7.30pm. The programme is our usual mixture of delightful arrangements of well-known classical pieces such as de Falla's Spanish Dance no.1 and Handel's Sarabande mixed with more contemporary works including our very own Harriet Adie's Elemental which we first performed in 2012.

For tickets and more information click here

All change!

We are pleased to debut our brand new website (same address - www.4girls4harps.com) complete with updated concert listings and new information about the group!

You can now buy our CD 'Fireworks and Fables' from the website as well so don't miss out on your chance to hear the unique sound of 4 Girls 4 Harps!

Find out more about our new member Elizabeth Scorah!

Hi Lizzy – welcome to the group. We’re really excited about working with you and thought it would be nice to let people know a bit more about you! So....

What made you take up the harp and how old were you when you started?

When I was five, I got into my head that I wanted to play the harp.  A bit of a shock for my unmusical family, as it came out of no where.  My Mum tried to fob me off with the recorder, but I stuck with the idea and a year later she had tracked down a teacher....no Google search then, so she hunted through the yellow pages in the library, found Holywell and it went from there.

Did you always want to play professionally?

It was one of my hobbies as a child, but I also enjoyed doing lots of other things too.  When I was younger it didn’t ever occur to me I could ever make a living as a harpist, until I realised that I wanted to play in a Symphony orchestra, more than anything.  From then on I was sold.  I did come home at 16 and announce to my parents I was giving up to become an air hostess.  That idea didn’t last long.....

How many harps do you have and why did you choose them?

I have two Lyon and Healy style 23s; one thats about 6 years old that I got from new, and one from 1962 that belonged to Karen Vaughan before.  This one I borrowed for my final recital at the Academy and fell in love with it.  The new one, I bough for myself while I was doing my first degree.  I had played on L&Hs during lessons and decided that I should get myself one, so off I went to save up.

Which harpist has most inspired you over the years?

Not one person in particular actually, its definitely my teachers at RAM, all of them in different ways.  Some through performances I have seen, some through the guidance they have given me.  During my time at RAM the whole harp thing clicked and I though, yes this is what I want.  It wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t inspired.

What do you love most about the harp?

Everything!  I have the best job in the world.  I never sit down and don’t fall in love with it all over again.  Its not one thing, its the package and the wonder of where I might end up in the future with my harp.

What is the strangest performance/place you have ever played in?

The Academy sent me away to Bosnia for some outreach work about seven years ago when I was a student.  I though touring was going to be glam.  Not quite the case, but we did have a fun time!

Do you have a favourite piece of harp music?

Ravel Introduction and Allegro.  I love to play it, and I love to hear it played.

What made you decide to audition for 4G4H?

I love harp ensemble.  After six years in the RAM harp ensemble, I ran out of degrees I could do other than a PHD, so I had to leave!

Also I knew two of the members and have loved playing along side them in other situations.  I knew it was this particular team I wanted to be a part of, thats why I auditioned.

What are you most looking forward to about playing with the group?

The cake breaks.

And preparing my part on my own, then the sound when we all fit together.  Its also great for me to work toward- three other harpists puts that little edge on it that makes me want to push myself and not let the team down. 

Also, having some people who understand where I am at and how I feel.  It can be lonely always working on your own.

What do you do to relax/entertain yourself away from the harp?

I bake a different cake every week for James.  One day he will be fat!

I love to travel, walk in Epping Forest, cook, and secretly I’m longing for an allotment.

What is on your Ipod at the moment?

I don’t have one!  I’m not a technical person, I put a cd in the machine and sit and listen to it rather than on the go.

Describe yourself in 5 words

Optimistic, happy, hopeful. I will decide the other two in the future.

What really gets your goat?

Excuses.  Just get on and do it, no one else will do it for you.

And people that get to the tube barrier and then decide to hunt for their ticket.