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2008 Harp Students & Instructors
Scottish Harp Course Information
Be aware that class size is limited and some classes fill BEFORE the stated deadline for registration.
All Students are expected to bring their own instruments.
 The Scottish Harp classes will focus on:
• Basic harp technique for beginners and intermediates.
• Repertoire at all levels, including tunes for competition sets.
• Scottish style, including ornaments, lilt, and dance types.
Evening jam sessions offer students the chance to develop accompaniment patterns and learn more
tunes.
 The nylon/gut harp classes will study Scottish dance music, airs, and songs, focusing on ornamentation,
Scottish style, accompaniment, and learning by ear. Afternoons will include lectures, practice time,
and playing in sessions. Classes will be available for beginners who have played for a few months,
intermediates, and advanced players.
Ann's class will focus on fingernail and damping techniques for the wire-strung clarsach~but any
harp is welcome since such techniques were also standard fare for gut harp. Repertoire will range from
beginning pieces to ports, strathspeys and reels. The creation of two level-appropriate groups will allow
for individualized instruction and practice opportunity as well. Afternoon lectures will include an
overview of fingernail technique, the “coupled hands” technique, and a discussion of symbolism in
harps.
2009 Instructors
Faculty is subject to change depending on enrollment.
 Maeve Gilchrist was born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland. Daughter to an Irish mother and Scottish father she grew up immersed in traditional folk music. At an early age Maeve was accepted into the City of Edinburgh Music School where she spent seven years studying classical piano, clarsach (Celtic harp), pedal harp and towards the end, jazz vocals. From thirteen onwards, Maeve was an in demand member on the traditional music scene in Scotland where she performed at events such as the opening of the Scottish Parliament, the Celtic Connections Festival and the International Edinburgh Harp Festival. At seventeen Maeve received a full scholarship from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA where she studied jazz and world music, alongside a colorful career as a professional musician and teacher. Maeve has performed all over the states as well as having being well received in Switzerland, UK, Italy, Spain, Czechoslovakia and Canada. Maeve has played and recorded with musicians such as Matt Glaser, Meshell Ndegio Cello, Terri Lyne Carrington, Vardan Ovsepian,The Unusual Suspects, Kathy Mattea, Esperanza Spalding, Frank Ferrell, Mary Macmaster, Corina Hewitt and Martyn Bennett. She leads her own group, ‘The Maeve Gilchrist Trio’ which fuses Jazz, Latin and Scottish music to create an exciting new sound. Her Debut CD ‘Reaching Me’ was released in 2006 to international acclaim.
Sharon Knowles emigrated from Scotland to the US in 1997, and has quickly become a popular teacher around the US from Georgia to Alaska. She likes to teach adults who believe they have no musical talent, and prove them wrong!
Another of her favourite activities is accompanying traditional music in an exciting and inventive way. Sharon has taught and performed at many noted summer schools in the United States including Ohio Scottish Arts School, the Big Sky Harp Festival in Montana, the Somerset Folk Harp Festival and Common Ground on the Hill. Sharon is currently working on her first solo album, "The Raven's Wing". She plays in the band Fynesound and with Sue Richards in the Celtic harp duo HEN. Sharon was the first harp player to perform with both a Highland dancer and an Irish dancer, another example of her innovative attitude towards the Celtic traditions. In addition, she has played her harp for large theatre productions and organises concerts and workshops for adults and children at her home near Gettysburg, PA.
Ann Heymann is the premier performer and teacher of wire-strung harp and a SHSA Distinguished Judge. Through study of surviving documents, Ann has recreated techniques once used by Gaelic harpers in Ireland and Scotland, and uses them to enhance the expression of both traditional and historical repertoire. Ann has toured throughout the U.S., Europe and Australia, with appearances at such notable venues as the Edinburgh Harp Festival, the Edinburgh International Festival and Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. An engaging lecturer and author of the instrument's first instructional, Secrets of the Gaelic Harp, Ann's more recent Coupled Hands for Harpers features progressive arrangements that introduce an exciting idiomatic approach to harp playing. Both her new CD release Cruit go nÓr * Harp of Gold and the previous Queen of Harps have been labeled as "definitive" cláirseach recordings. In addition to recording and performing with her husband Charlie, Ann has collaborated with Scottish harper Alison Kinnaird, Highland pipers Alan MacDonald and Barnaby Brown, and Gaelic singer's Alasdair Codona and Margaret Stewart.
"One of America's brightest stars.." -Dirty Linen Magazine Sue Richards studied harp in Ohio with Lucy Lewis and Jean Harriman, and then turned to the Irish and Scottish traditional music of her heritage. She won the American National Scottish Harp Championship four times and is a Scottish Harp Society of America (SHSA) Distinguished Judge. She has served as president of SHSA and the Washington, D.C., Folk Harp Society. She is a popular teacher, adjudicator, composer and arranger, and has taught from Alaska to Maine. She appeared at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival and Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow, toured Norway and Sweden with the "Harpa"ensemble, played for President Bill Clinton, and sat in with the Chieftains. Sue can be heard on dozens of recordings, both solo and with ENSEMBLE GALILEI, a group of five women specializing in Celtic, Early, and original music. As a member of EG she has written music and performed in two multi-media shows, “A Universe of Dreams”, and “First Person: Letters from the Edge of the World”, the latter sponsored by the National Geographic Society and having its debut in April of 2007.
Cindy Shelhart, an American harper from northwest Indiana, performs, teaches and publishes traditional and contemporary music for double-strung harp. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in music and German from Ball State University in 1985, Cindy studied pedal and historical harp with Nan Gullo Richmond and lever harp with Elizabeth Cifani. In 2005, she released her solo double-strung harp CD Limberlost Angel, and later that year won the US National Scottish Harp Championship and Travel Scholarship. Cindy now performs at Highland Games and Scottish festivals throughout the United States and is a certified adjudicator for the Scottish Harp Society of America. She teaches privately in Chesterton, Indiana, and is in national demand as a festival clinician. A leading authority in double-strung harp performance and pedagogy, Cindy is author of the first method book for double-strung harp, Make Mine a Double (2008). Her repertoire collection, Tunes to Go: 400 Tunes in Lead Sheet Format for the Harp (2003), has become a standard among harpers and harp ensembles of all levels.
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