The ancients said the harp was a mystical instrument, and with the biggest harp festival in the world coming to Vancouver right around the corner there will be a lot of magic in one place.
The World Harp Congress & Festival will be centered around the heart of downtown Vancouver for a week in late July, including concerts, workshops and master classes running daily for participants. But, it will also feature some of the best talents in New Westminster.
"It's a lot of harp," Lori Pappajohn, the festival's publicist, told The Record in a phone interview. "They're the top in the world at what they do and there's more than 40 countries, 900 people attending and 100 performers."
One event highlight is the combined New West and Burnaby talent featured in the ensemble, Winter Harp.
"We are very different from everybody else," Pappajohn, the New West harpist and vocalist asset to the local ensemble, said. "I compose and arrange all of our music. It's world music with a classical style arrangement. You could say it's sophisticated world music."
What sets the Winter Harp ensemble apart, with its percussionists, harpists, vocalist and medieval instruments, is its performances in colourful costumes in front of a painted backdrop.
"We combine a music concert with the best of theatre," she said. "There's nobody out there like us."
Winter Harp will be playing on July 27 at the Vogue Theatre in a double concert with legendary harpist and storyteller Patrick Ball.
"There's never been so many harps in Vancouver ever," Pappajohn added.
The New Westminster native also com-posed a piece for the opening gala. It follows the history of music in B.C. that is often forgotten, Pappajohn said.
"The first expedition was done by the Spanish, and they brought their geologists, scientists, artists, because they didn't have photographers so they brought their artists," she explained, "and they had a musician playing the harpsichord who would record all the songs of the birds and native music."
Pappajohn went on to mention the time of the gold rush in Barkerville and the miners who all proved their love for music when they squeezed a piano up there before there were any real roads. Not to forget the first miner who died there was a famous Parisian violinist.
"I found a harpist photo from 1912," she added. "There's a harpist playing on the frozen Fraser River by Prince George with people skating around him."
"It's been a year of research and writ-ing."
The narration for Pappajohn's opening gala piece will be done by New Westminster's former chief librarian, Alan Woodland. The New Westminster Symphony Orchestra conductor, Jin Zhang, who is also a composer, will have his Chinese-style composition be performed by Vancouver harpist Lani Krantz on July 24 at 3 p.m. in the Vogue Theatre.
"He is a brilliant composer," Pappajohn noted. "He wrote a piece with the harp and Chinese violin. It's so sensitive to both instruments and it showcases the beauty of each instrument and then integrates them as if they were always played together."
The congress will feature evening concerts with acclaimed harpists performing concertos with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra from July 24 to 30.
For more information on the harp festival visit www.worldharpcongress.org.
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