UKHA EMERGING ARTIST SERIES
9, 11 and 13 October 2024
Each year the UK Harp Association committee selects three soloists or ensembles at the beginning of their careers to take part in a collaborative concert series. With support from the UKHA, these artists will work together to curate, plan and perform nine concerts across the UK.
https://www.ukharp.net/emerging-artists.html
Part One - Auro Duo (Clara Gatti Comini and Maria McNamee)
Wednesday 9 October 2024 from 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Clara Gatti Comini and Maria McNamee will be performing a classical programme including music by Mel Bonis, Fanny Mendelssohn, Germaine Tailleferre, Marie Jaëll, as well as a newly written piece by composer Tom Hughes and Waltzes and Promenades by John Marson to celebrate the UKHA 60th anniversary.
Clara and Maria are two concert harpists who began playing as duo after receiving the joint John Marson Prize for Outstanding Musicianship in 2020. They both completed their undergraduate and master's degrees at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, having both graduated with distinction in 2023.
The duo have enjoyed performing together for various concerts in and around London. Highlights include their debut recital at St. James Piccadilly, as well as their regular concerts in Greenwich at the Old Royal Naval College Chapel, St Alfege Church and Queen’s House and as part of the Conservatoire Concerts series in Godalming.
In 2020, the Aura Duo recorded John Marson's Waltzes & Promenades for Da Vinci records, as part of the CD A Day in the Life of ... John Marson. In 2023 the duo recorded Gimnopedia Rapsodica for two harps, piccolo, flute, celesta and spoken voice, as part of Dr Simone Spagnolo's album which will be released on Spotify and Youtube in March 2024.
The duo enjoys collaborating with live composers on generating new music for two harps.
Tickets available here.
Part Two - Eleanor Dunsdon and Gregor Black
Friday 11 October 2024 from 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Eleanor and Gregor are a Glasgow-based harp and percussion duo, who met during their postgraduate studies in Traditional Music at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2022. Blending their respective sounds of Scottish clarsach and Irish bodhrán, along with contemporary percussion and vocals, they form a dynamic and innovative new duo. Drawing on their shared experiences in classical, traditional, and jazz music, they aim to challenge perceptions of the clarsach and push the boundaries of the traditional music scene. The duo's debut EP, Let No Man, was released with GoatsKin Records in April 2024.
Danny Kyle Open Stage winners at Glasgow's Celtic Connections and Purbeck Rising winners, the duo have been invited to perform at both festivals in 2025. So far for 2024 the duo have also featured as 'rising stars' at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival, played as FATEA's featured artists at Southport's Love Folk Festival, and will head out on tour to Ireland in September. Their music has featured on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio Ulster, BBC Radio Scotland, RTÉ Radio 1, FATEA's Showcase Sessions and Celtic Music Radio.
Tickets available here.
Part Three - Tara Viscardi
Sunday 13 October 2024 from 6:00pm - 7:30pm
Tara will perform works by Monteverdi, Strozzi, Luzzaschi, Carolan and Purcell on the Italian baroque triple harp alongside her own contemporary folk compositions on traditional Irish harp.
Hailing from the Beara Peninsula in the South-West of Ireland, Tara Viscardi performs on Irish traditional, classical and baroque harps. A graduate of the Royal College of Music, Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado Milan and TU Dublin Conservatoire, Tara was first prize winner of the 2021 London Camac Harp Competition and is a 2024 UK Harp Association Emerging Artist. Solo and chamber performances have taken her across Ireland and the UK, to venues including the Wigmore Hall, St John's Smith Square, Cadogan Hall, the Irish Embassy, Irish Cultural Centre, London Irish Centre, Canterbury Cathedral, Shakespeare’s Globe and the National Concert Hall Dublin.
She has been featured playing her own arrangements and compositions on BBC Radio 3, RTÉ Radio 1, RTÉ Lyric FM, RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta, BBC Radio Ulster, Radio Kerry and Bloomsbury Radio. Further highlights include performing at the 13th World Harp Congress Hong Kong, for Irish President Michael D Higgins and Mrs Sabina Higgins at Áras an Uachtaráin, for An Taoiseach and An Tánaiste upon their visits to London and for HM King Charles III and Queen Camilla at Hillsborough Castle. She launched her debut album Beara in April 2024, where she is joined by flautist Robert Harvey for her own compositions paired with music written and collected on the Beara Peninsula since the 18th century. She released a debut EP, Uncovered Roots in 2023 with saxophonist Robert Finegan, which explores folk music from Ireland and the UK in different contexts and is currently part of early music ensemble Nobody's Jig and folk group MNÁ as well as collaborating with countertenor Hugh Cutting.
Tickets available here.
Also part of the Sunday Sundown concerts at the church.
At Heath Street Baptist Church. See map and get directions.