| Date: October 10-12, 2008 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| Instructors |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
 |
|
| |
|
You couldn't get a more friendly and encouraging teaching staff than the instructors we have at the Harpers Escape.
They are very knowledgeable, experienced and personable teachers and they love what they do!
Last year we added Billy Jackson and Sharon Knowles, who joined Kathy DeAngelo, Debbie Brewin-Wilson and Grainne Hambly. This year we're throwing a Sweet 16 party for the Escape!
|
Instructors at the 16th Escape are Kathy DeAngelo, Billy Jackson, Debbie Brewin-Wilson and Grainne Hambly. Not pictured: Sharon Knowles. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
Kathy DeAngelo
 Kathy is a co-founder of the Harpers Escape. She has been playing Irish music for more than 30 years and harp in particular since 1984.
She performs with McDermott's Handy and has played extensively throughout the tri-state region. She teaches harp and fiddle in County Camden, NJ.
She and her husband Dennis Gormley host a long-running Irish seisiun in Haddonfield. Kathy has been a major catalyst for popularizing the harp in the Philadelphia area.
She directs the Delaware Valley Celtic Harp Orchestra and organizes performances for the Next Generation in Philadelphia. Many of her students have taken titles at the mid-Atlantic Fleadh Cheoil and gone on to compete in Ireland.
Kathy's recordings include Come Take the Byroads with McDermott's Handy and the Harpers Escape Ten Years of Tunes CD, which also has a companion music book. She recently started her own company, You Gotta Have Harp Productions,
which represents harp-playing and other Irish artists.
In addition to the Harpers Escape, Kathy helped to create a harp camp at West Chester University, now renamed You Gotta Have Harp Summer Camp and relocated to Burlington NJ. She has taught workshops at the Somerset Harp Conference as well as the Irish Arts Week in the Catskills. As if that wasn't enough to do, she is also music director of the New Jersey Folk Festival.
Debbie Brewin-Wilson
 Debbie is a co-founder of the Harpers' Escape. She has been teaching at the Escape for all of its 16 years.
She has been performing festivals, concerts and coffeehouse venues throughout the Northeastern United States for more than a dozen years.
She has a rich, expressive voice that is perfectly complemented by her harp. Besides being well-steeped in traditional Scottish music, she performs her own
songs which bring a fresh perspective to that heritage as well as many of life’s journeys. She has 3 CDs to her credit: Dream of Caledonia, Roots and Wings, and her Christmas CD
Love Came Down at Christmas. All contain traditional music as well as her own compositions. She also recorded Harpers Escape Ten Years of Tunes CD. She has published two books on the music of Robert Burns arranged for harp.
Grainne Hambly
 Grainne is an internationally recognized Irish harper and will be teaching a master class at The Harpers Escape
Weekend. This is her 7th year on our staff. She is now
touring with Scottish harper William Jackson as Masters of the Celtic Harp. She is an original member of the
Belfast Harp Orchestra and had been its principal harper. She was the senior All-Ireland harp (and concertina)
champion in 1994 and has won the prestigious Keadue and Granard harp competitions as well. Grainne is a certified
harp teacher in Ireland and has taught countless workshops and toured in the US, Europe and Scandinavia. She has
done numerous recordings, including her latest solo CD The Thorn Tree, as well as Golden Lights and Green Shadows and Between
the Showers. She also has 2 books of her arrangements, many from her CD, called Traditional Irish Music arranged
for Harp Vol. 1 and Traditional Irish Music arranged for Harp Vol. 2. Read more about Grainne on her website at
http://grainne.harp.net.
William Jackson
 Billy has been at the forefront of Scottish traditional music for nearly 30 years. In addition to his stature as one of the leading harpers and multi-instrumentalists in Scotland, William has gained an international reputation as a composer.
Billy was a founding member and creative tour de force of Ossian in 1976, which became one of Scotland's best-loved traditional bands. The band, whose music influenced a generation of musicians, extensively toured the U.S. and Europe.
They recorded 8 albums. Billy has released 11 CDs of his own--his newest The New Harp was just released in March 2008. While working with Ossian, he also established himself as a composer and he has steadily knit together Celtic influences with classical instrumentation in a style uniquely his own.
His "Land of Light" won the international competition in 1999 as the new song for Scotland. He and Grainne are touring together this year as The Masters of the Celtic Harp. This is his second year on our staff. He has taught for many years at the
Swannanoa Gathering and received a Master Music Maker award for Lifetime Achievement Award from Warren Wilson College in 2004.
Sharon Knowles
 Sharon comes to the Harpers Escape for the second year.
She emigrated from Scotland in 1997 and has been playing the celtic harp for over 20 years.
Sharon began as an adult with lessons from Mary Mac Master and Patsy Seddon in 1986. She has performed in many festivals in
Ireland, Scotland, U.S., and Australia. She performed in the Washington Revels,
Smithsonian Discovery Theater, and many festivals and private functions in this area.
Sharon has been teaching for over 15 years and has regular students in three states.
She has taught at the Ohio Scottish Arts School at Oberlin several times and adjudicates harp competitions at Scottish Games around the country.
Sharon performs as a duo with her fiddler husband, John Knowles, and is the guiding hand of the WAMA nominated band, Fynesound.
For information about recordings and performances see www.fynesound.com.
|
| |
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
