Places » Harpist Angelina

Countdown to Christmas – 2 weeks to go

11 December 2018 No Comments

I can’t believe how close we are to Christmas. Present buying has started and some gifts are wrapped and ready but there’s still a long way to go and not much time to get organised.

I am actually at home this morning! Having a chilled one with a cup or two of Lady Grey tea and Spyder the cat. In a little while I’m going to hop on the mat for some yoga and meditation, before packing for another trip to York, only this time I’m not 100% sure when I’m coming back, but more on that later.

This past week has been another mad one, I got some hang-out time with CLOUDS, which is always lovely. We managed to get all four of us plus four harps in one lift – photographic evidence doesn’t really do it justice but I’ll just leave this here:

harpist, harp quartet, clouds harp quartet

The gig of the week was on Sunday at a church in Adel, just north of Leeds. A real treat for me as it was Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols with the Leeds Guild of Singers.

leeds harpist, harpist in Leeds

I was also asked to play a solo, so I played an arrangement of Divinum Mysterium – people often know it as Of the father’s love begotten. One of my favourite Christmas carols. The Leeds Guild of Singers sounded really lovely so do go and see them if you live in or around Leeds.

So from Leeds it was then time to drive back to Manchester ready for my final shift at Chetham’s School of Music on Monday morning. I’ve been a member of the Practice Team pretty much since leaving college, but now that our big move is just around the corner it’s time to stop my regular shifts there. I’ll still go back to cover shifts here and there if need be but it will only be from time to time.

It feels so strange to be cutting my ties with Manchester. The massive things for me were saying goodbye to the choir of St. Ann’s Church, where I’ve been singing since 2012, saying goodbye to my Manchester private students, and, of course, Chetham’s. I know I’ve made friends for life, and I’ve had the time of my life in Manchester but it’s time to close this chapter and start a new chapter in 2019. As sad as I am to be leaving Manchester I am so excited to be going back to my Yorkshire roots, setting up a new home with my partner-in-crime and seeing what opportunities I can grasp east of the Pennines – and if you’re reading this, you’ll be coming with me every step of the way. Thank you.

So, from the new year I will be scouting out work over in Yorkshire so please do use my contact form to get in touch if you need a harpist in York for music lessons, or for background music for your wedding or social event. You can also email me – angelinawarburton@gmail.com.

As always, thanks so much for reading, here are my social media links if you want to follow me or say hi.

See you next week!

Countdown to Christmas – 3 weeks to go

4 December 2018 No Comments

Well this feels retro, I’m writing this in the break between a rehearsal and an evening concert. I’m sitting in the cafe of Leeds College of Music, having rehearsed with the Wind Orchestra before their concert tonight. We are playing an arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (amongst other pieces that don’t require a harp). Here’s a photo of the pitched percussion section – harp, piano, celeste.

This weekend has been exceedingly busy, it began on Friday and finishes on Tuesday evening. Today (Monday 3rd) me and the harp are in Leeds, we were in Sheffield last Saturday and then there’s a CLOUDS meet-up tomorrow. Do you like how I’m including Monday and Tuesday in the weekend? Wednesday I will chill. All day. Burning the candle at both ends can only be sustained for so long.

Things actually calm down a bit from then on, which is unusual for December but not surprising as most of my teaching has now drawn to a close ready for the big move to York. Speaking of which, I’m still clinging on to the hope that we’ll be in our new house by Christmas, we just need to sign contracts and complete. Keep everything crossed. Our journey to a home of our own has been 18 months in the making and I cannot tell you how excited I am to get a bit more settled. Congleton is so lovely but the amount of driving Tim and I are both doing is crazy.

December is a great time to think about the year ahead and start planning and getting organised. What are your goals for 2019 – musical or otherwise? One of my goals will be to keep on schedule with my social media. That means weekly blog posts – pop your email in the box if you’d like to join my little crew (what shall we call ourselves?) and receive these posts into your inbox. It also means weekly videos on my YouTube channel, which you can subscribe to here.

The current plan with the videos is to alternate between a performance video and more of a vlog/life update video. I really enjoy making these and I hope you enjoy seeing a little snippet of what’s going on over here, any feedback is always appreciated.

In the meantime, from the new year I will be scouting out work over in Yorkshire so please do use my contact form to get in touch if you need a harpist in York for music lessons, or for background music for your wedding or social event. You can also email me – angelinawarburton@gmail.com.

As always, thanks so much for reading, here are my social media links if you want to follow me or say hi.

See you next week!

Career, Music, Places

Diary of a Wedding Harpist

18 July 2018 No Comments

There’s a new video up on my Youtube channel – a little vlog of a recent weekend where I had a couple of weddings to play for. Firstly I was playing in Liverpool’s gorgeous St. George’s Hall, then the following day I was playing for a church wedding ceremony up in Chorley.

Summer is a busy time for harpists and it feels so good to have a full diary for the rest of the season.

Career, Music, Places

HARP DIARY | Mytholmroyd & Stockport

15 December 2016 No Comments

Last weekend was another packed weekend with gigs on both Friday and Saturday. This December is proving to be one of the busiest ever and I have to say that I’m loving being busy with harp-related activities:

Friday’s gig was so last minute – but I suppose that’s often the case with funerals. The church was in Mytholmroyd and was flooded last year, so has had a complete re-furb and is all pretty new. My job was simple: a touch of background music while friends and family gathered, and then Debussy’s Clair de Lune during communion. I do find funerals difficult to play for though – they are never easy are they?

Saturday meant Stockport Symphony Orchestra, and a lot of notes. And I do I mean a lot! I’d been sent the music a week or so before the concert with a little note from the other harpist saying ‘impossible bit! Play what you can!’ I personally hate being told something is impossible so dutifully worked on the notes until I could play them, only to find that once I was in the rehearsal it went about triple the speed I had been practising. Oops. It was unfortunately a case of ‘grab any strings you can’. You can see from the video that the inside of the Town Hall is very pretty – and the orchestra had made it suitably Christmassy by putting tinsel on the music stands and several instruments. Christmas hats also featured in the second half of the concert. Unfortunately I missed that memo.

So another busy weekend! Do check out the video and subscribe to my YouTube channel for more videos of my harpy adventures. Please also sign up to receive these posts in your inbox by popping your email address in the box when asked.

Watch this space for next week’s video and post – it’s going to be a good one!

Career, Music, Places

HARP DIARY | GIGS ALL WEEKEND

9 December 2016 No Comments

Last weekend was a busy one. As well as having gigs on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I was busy making a new video too:

If you have yet to visit Don Giovanni’s restaurant in Manchester city centre – make it a top priority. It’s been one of my favourite restaurants for as long as I’ve lived in Manchester (longer than I care to admit). Although I will say that playing whilst hungry is not a good idea when you are literally surrounded by the sight and smell of your favourite food (garlic bread).

Friday’s wedding in Lymm was a relatively short gig as I was only playing for the ceremony. Big congratulations to Amy and Peter for a beautiful day. Amy’s dress was stunning and took up the whole aisle. I actually thought the staff were kidding when they said I would have to move my harp to make way for The Dress.

Saturday’s gig was an orchestral concert in Southport. I mention in the video but I want to say here as well that, after learning the cadenza from Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers years and years ago, playing it with an orchestra is always such a treat. It makes me so happy. What also made me happy was the children’s choir who were also performing. To see them utterly mesmerised by the music was absolutely wonderful. Hopefully the orchestra will have inspired them to carry on with music and to keep learning.

December 2016 is shaping up to be one of the busiest ever. Watch this space for more exciting projects, videos and gigs.

To get my posts in your inbox (never more that once a week), enter your email in the Subscribe box when it appears. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Cheerio for now!

Career, Music, Places

Sounds of the Cosmos II

18 June 2015 2 Comments

On Tuesday 9th June I had a gig in Sheffield, playing with Sheffield’s Rep Orchestra conducted by a good friend of mine – George Morton.

The ‘rep’ we were playing was Gustav Holst’s The Planets as part of Sheffield’s ‘DocFest’ or Documentary Festival.

The concert was in Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre, which was exciting in itself – we used to take school trips there to see plays from time to time. Í’ve played The Planets in Sheffield so many times in the past few years, but this was definitely a special gig.

Behind the orchestra was a big screen, showing visualisations and photographs of outer space, the planets, and different types of star. It was completely fascinating. This visualisation in particular just blew me away.

As is becoming my habit, I arrived in Sheffield an hour and a half early so I grabbed a quick coffee and a pain au chocolat in the nearby cafe Marmadukes – it’s a small but lovely place just around the corner from the theatre. The staff were great and talked me through their extensive choice of coffees. I sat for a while and caught up on some reading (Needful Things by Stephen King) before heading back to the theatre to set up and tune.

We rehearsed for just over an hour then had some time to get ready for the 8.30pm concert. Quite a late start but I heard there were over five hundred people there. There are two harp parts for the Holst and the other harpist was the lovely Alley York:

The performance went really well, we even got a little standing ovation, but as it was a late start it was well after midnight when I finally got home to Manchester. Long day but so worth it.

Career, Music, Places

Edinburgh International Harp Festival 2015

16 April 2015 6 Comments

I’m spending four days up in Scotland this week to take part in Edinburgh’s International Harp Festival 2015 with my harp quartet CLOUDS. Today is Sunday, day one.

I took the train up from Manchester. So I’m here, with no car, and no harp – totally at the mercy of my fellow CLOUDS members to look after me – they’re doing a brilliant job so far I must say.

It was awesome having some alone time on the train, time to read my book, time to stare out of the window, time to get very annoyed by the drunk hen party trying to get us all to do shots at 2pm.

I arrived in Edinburgh and shared a lift to the festival with Bec and we had some snacks and quickly got to rehearsing for our concert on Tuesday.

Great thing about a harp festival – you can go shopping and you know it’s all useful stuff. Ergonomic tuning key for a fiver? We’ll take as many as we can thanks!

There are so many harp-related things/music/t-shirts/postcards/jewellry/CDs/mugs/aprons! I need to remember not to spend too much money while I’m here.

Speaking of dilemmas, here’s one:

I have so much practice to do – seriously – I have a very important audition next month and sooo many notes to learn. So what do I do? Experience the festival properly by going to everything – knowing that I have all the more work to do when I get home – or hide myself away and try to practice? Maybe I’ll try and find a happy medium tomorrow.

But for now, I’ve eaten a lovely dinner thanks to Esther’s mum and am now tucked up in bed – let’s see what tomorrow brings.

Monday – Day Two

Today has been a long one. We arrived at the festival just after 10am, my fellow CLOUDS were booked in for a masterclass with the lovely Eleanor Turner but I:

a) wasn’t organised enough to get a ticket

b) actually quite wanted to just hang out at the festival, see the exhibitions, go shopping etc.

So until lunchtime I visited the showroom and looked at lots of new harps & harp accessories (my weakness!) I bought some awesome tape that has manuscript on it so if you want to re-write something enharmonically you just tape over it! What a find! I also bought some nice arrangements of wedding music that’s bound to come in handy. I think that’s all I bought today (not including food – oops).

I also went for a little walk down to the village of Colinton, about 15 minutes walk from the festival – I saw a couple of very nice looking restaurants that I’d love to try if I was staying for longer.

Anyway, we all met up for lunch – it’s so nice to see lots of RNCM harpists here – then CLOUDS went along to the class Esther was teaching to demonstrate some of the improvisation we do in our music. The class were so lovely and appreciative!

I’m ashamed to say that after the class, more shopping took place. We were shown some amazing carbon fibre lever harps (try saying that out loud – it’s hard!) which are unbelievably light and seemingly impossible to damage. These harps are the future! You can lift it with one hand easily, which we did, several times:

There is so much to see. Listing all the stands would take forever! There’s harp makers, harp music, harp cases, harp insurance, harp amplification, jazz harp, baroque harp, harp jewellry, greeting cards, stools, stands, tuning keys, bags, tuners, the list goes on and on and we want all of it!

Oh and there seem to be pots of Haribo everywhere too – what’s going on?!

I managed to squeeze in about half an hour of practice (shameful but better than nothing!) before CLOUDS began our last big rehearsal before our concert tomorrow night. We are borrowing beautiful, brand new harps from Holywell so we’re a bit nervous about doing all our usual extended techniques in case we break them! But we do it to our own harps all the time and I’m sure the lovely folks at Holywell trust us completely (cough).

At around 7.30pm we called it a day and headed back to Esther’s place in Peebles, lovely Peebles! I wish I was here for longer to spend some time just walking around and take in the breath-taking scenery – but we’re at the festival all day and when we get back we just have dinner and crash.

Tomorrow is concert day! Yayyy!

Tuesday – Day Three

For most of Tuesday morning/afternoon we took it quite easy to save our energy for the evening concert. We rehearsed for about an hour but for the rest of the time we mainly ate and chilled out. Bec and I found a lovely pub called the Spylaw Tavern so we thought we should take the opportunity and eat while we still had time. All the harps were moved for us by David from Holywell – which was brilliant.

The concert itself went really well. We had a great time and the hall was almost completely full. We got lots of lovely feedback too. After the interval we helped ourselves to a celebratory glass of wine and watched the second half of the concert – Eleanor Turner – who was fantastic, we are all in awe of her amazing playing!

Immediately after the concert the festival had laid on some wine and snacks for us. All my favourite foods were there: goats cheese, houmous, coleslaw, it was brilliant!

We then decided to carry on the party in Edinburgh at The Jazz Bar, where we stayed and danced to live jazz until just after 3am. Some of the current RNCM harpists came too and we had a really good catch up on all things harp/life related. I am slightly worried that we were a little rowdy when we got back to our rooms, we did our best to be quiet! Kind of…

Wednesday – Day Four

All of this brings us to Wednesday, day four. We knew we would need breakfast this morning but they only serve food until 9am – so this means we got around four hours of sleep. All we could do this morning was eat, pack, check-out of our rooms, and get to the city centre ready for my train.

So here I am at the Waterstones cafe on Princes Street, Edinburgh. My train is in a couple of hours and then I’ll be back in Manchester and it will be time to get back to work!

This has turned into a mammoth post – but these past few days have been great: lovely people, inspiring music and performances, great setting.

Harpists, if you are debating whether to go to this harp festival, I strongly urge you to go! There is something for everyone, whatever standard you are. If you like the harp, you’ll fit right in, trust me!