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| Instructors |
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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!
Kathy DeAngelo and Debbie Brewin-Wilson (on right) have taught at all 20 Harpers' Escapes. Grainne Hambly joined the staff in 2000 and Billy Jackson came on board in 2007.
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Instructors at the 20th Escape: Billy Jackson, Grainne Hambly, Kathy DeAngelo and Debbie Brewin-Wilson. |
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Kathy DeAngelo
 Kathy is a co-founder of the Harpers Escape. She has been playing Irish music for more than 35 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 NJ's longest-running Irish seisiun in Audubon. Kathy has been a major catalyst for popularizing the harp in the Philadelphia area.
She directed 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 both the Harpers Escape Ten Years of Tunes and Another Ten Years of Tunes CD, which also have companion music books. She created her music promotion company, You Gotta Have Harp Productions,
in 2005 and 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 GMG Harp Forum. She has taught workshops at the Somerset Folk Harp Festival 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.
In 2008, Kathy took over the management and promotion of the wonderful Somerset Folk Harp Festival, yet another great harp event!
Debbie Brewin-Wilson
 Debbie is a co-founder of the Harpers' Escape. She has been teaching at the Escape for all of its years.
She has been performing festivals, concerts and coffeehouse venues throughout the Northeastern United States for more than twenty 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 and Another Ten Years of Tunes CDs. She has published two books on the music of Robert Burns arranged for harp. Debbie has been teaching the Basically Beginning harp class at the Somerset Folk Harp Festival since 2010.
Grainne Hambly
 Grainne is an internationally recognized Irish harper and will be teaching the advanced-level class at The Harpers Escape
Weekend. She started teaching at the Escape in 2000. She is now
touring with Scottish harper William Jackson as Masters of the Celtic Harp. Grainne is a certified
harp teacher in Ireland and has taught countless workshops and toured in the US, Europe and Japan.
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 plus the CD Music of Ireland and Scotland with William Jackson. 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 more than 35 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 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 as The Masters of the Celtic Harp. He joined our staff in 2007. 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. Read more about Billy on hisr website at http://www.wjharp.com. |
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updated 3/7/13 |
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