Harp Talk 2 Podcast

Recently hailed by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette as a performer who plays “with a flair that we are coming to know well,” Heidi Van Hoesen Gorton joins the Toronto Symphony Orchestra as Principal Harp for the 2011-2012 season. She has been described as one of the most outstanding solo, chamber and orchestral musicians of her generation and has performed solo recitals the world over from New York to Los Angeles, Vancouver to Vienna. Heidi earned two degrees in harp performance from The Juilliard School of Music under the tutelage of Nancy Allen, and has also studied with Gretchen Van Hoesen, Anne Marguerite-Michaud and Elizabeth Fontan-Binoche. Heidi visited New Orleans through the New Orleans American Harp Society chapter and gave a recital and a workshop, which brought a wonderful response from the local harpists and fans around New Orleans. Patrice Fisher, president of the New Orleans chapter of the American Harp Society, interviews Heidi while visiting New Orleans.

Sue Richards is an internationally known harpist, teacher, arranger and composer. She has traveled the world performing as a soloist at Somerset and Edinburgh harp festivals. She has recorded dozens of CDs and published many books of arrangements and original music for harp. She, recently, came to New Orleans to give a series of concerts and workshops at local libraries and hospitals. It was a real pleasure to work with Sue Richards and enjoyed her beautiful music. For more information about this show, you can contact: Patrice Fisher at: ecoslatinos@gmail.com or go to: www.suerichards.net

"Imagine a red haired Celt from Brittany, just out of a Broceliande tale, with a voice that hovers somewhere between the high registers of Kate Bush, the purity of Sinead O Connor and the mysticism of Enya and you’ll have a good idea what this remarkable young harpist, arranger of traditional songs and original songwriter sounds like.” Singer and Harpist Cecile Corbel was born in Brittany, in the Finistère, at the very west of Europe. In her teens, after learning the guitar, she discovered the Celtic harp. The young Breton composer and singer now shares her « pop folk Celtic » music with her musicians in France and abroad.