First Post re-posted

Hello, everyone!
This is my first jump into the giant swimming pool of blogdom. I say "jump" rather than "dive" as I do most things feet first rather than head first - and those feet are usually attached to legs that are kicking.

Not that I'm screaming along with kicking - I'm not really that reluctant to do a blog, I just have resisted up until now.

But I'm going to start this one out with a purpose.

ActorHarper is my "persona", so you'll find lots of entries about acting and playing the harp, as well as entries about tangentially related topics.

I start rehearsal on Monday for "Suddenly Last Summer" with Albuquerque's Fusion Theatre Company. Throughout all the many years that I have done theatre, I've never kept a consistent rehearsal diary.

Well, there's always a first time...

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Rehearsal doesn't start until Monday, however. So first, let me tackle some of Professor Price's suggested questions:

* What is your favorite hobby?

Well, you can probably tell that I enjoy acting and love to play the harp. But I also sing and play guitar with a Celtic band called Shenanigans, and I love to learn new music, especially songs in Irish and Scots Gaelic. I'm also addicted to my Early Music Ensemble class, which feeds my hobby of learning to play lots of early and exotic musical instruments, like the rebec and the lute and the saz.

* What are your must-see TV shows?

I admit it. I've become hooked on the new "Dr. Who" series! I think Christopher Eccleston is a perfect doctor. I've had some trepidation about David Tennant as the new doctor, but after watching him in Masterpiece Theatre's "Casanova," I eagerly await the new series broadcast with him as the new Time Lord.

* What book, if any, have you really enjoyed recently?

I consider mystery novels my "candy books" - books that are delicious and often filled with empty calories. But not all those calories are empty. I recently nourished myself on "Death of a Joyce Scholar," by Bartholomew Gill. To make it more scrumptious, I read it while I visited Ireland - and Dublin, where the book takes place - for the first time this summer.

Celtic Christmas Concerts

There are two upcoming Celtic Christmas concerts I want to tell you about. Sorry I didn't mention this before, as there have already been two concerts. But one was really a dress rehearsal, and the other one was out-of-town.

Please come! They're fun, inexpensive (one's free, the other has a small admission fee), and I love being the narrator of these musical, dance-filled, Christmasy events:

Celtic Christmas Performances

It is time again for the annual “Celtic Christmas” program!
The Next Chapter has invited the following guests to join in the celebration:
“Jubal’s Kids” (what’s Christmas without kids?),
Kathy Wimmer (to share delightful stories from the Emerald Isle),
Kim and Jenny Coleman (dynamic Irish step dancing), and
Doug Cowan (the majestic Scottish Highland Bagpipes).

As always, “The Apple Mountain Harp Kids” will perform their holiday program in the lobby 30 minutes before each scheduled performance. Performances are listed below. We hope you can make it to one of them!

Friday, December 15th at 7pm.
St. Michael’s and All Angel’s Episcopal Church.
601 Montano Road. For info contact: 345-8147 (admission charged)

Sunday, December 17th at 6:30pm.
Faith Lutheran Church.
10000 Spain Road. For info contact: 296-0762 (no admission charged)

Check out more about The Next Chapter and explore the band's website, or go directly to Celtic Christmas Pics for photos of past performances.

'Tis The Very Musical Season

Okay, here's where I plug various upcoming musical performances and go on and on about all the musical activities in the month of December.

Lots to tell! And where do I start?

Well, let's start with the first concert. On Saturday, December 2, the Early Music Ensemble with hold a free concert in Keller Hall (across the lobby from Popejoy Hall). It's at 7:30, and it's free.

UNM Early Music Ensemble

• Music from Medieval & Renaissance Germany
• Saturday, December 2
• Keller Hall (across the lobby from Popejoy Hall, UNM campus)
• 7:30 PM
• Free!
  
  Okay, so I only play the harp on one piece in the concert. So, I'm not really
• ActorHarper

Instead, I'm

• ActorHarperTenor&Soprano RecorderViolaDeGamba&LutePlayer
  
  At least for this concert.
  
  But if you're totally hooked on medieval and renaissance music like I am, you want to keep on trying all sorts of period instruments. It's an addiction. I invite you all to get hooked by checking out the Early Music Ensemble.
  
  

Goodbye, Michael Carlson

The loss
of one
affects many.

I haven't blogged in a while, because I knew it was going to be hard to write this entry.

One of my very, very dear friends - and a gift to the folk music world - passed away a little over two weeks ago.

Michael Carlson was the president of the Apple Mountain Dulcimer Club, taught mountain dulcimer with an enthusiasm and passion that was unmatched, and was an expert folk dancer.

He taught fourth and fifth graders at Solomon Schechter Day School, and brought music into their lives, too.

He taught adults who never picked up a musical instrument before - ever - and his enthusiasm and gift of teaching let them know that it wasn't ever too late to learn to play enjoyable music on the mountain dulcimer.

I was so fortunate to have known him. Five years ago, I roped him into doing a production with me. It was a version of the Passion Play that was being produced by my friends who would soon establish the Fusion Theatre Company. They asked me to do the music for this play, that would rehearse in a whirlwind week and have three performances in a school-turned-amphitheatre in Cerrillos.

I said sure - if I could have help.

I enlisted Michael.

I got to know him so well during that intense week of rehearsals and performances. During the long drive to and from Cerrillos, we talked and talked. We talked about out school days and our families, my husband, Ken, and Michael's wife, Arlene.

We also talked about the music we would be playing. I wanted to feature Michael on a tune called "The Dark Island," and it came at a particularly poignant moment in this modern version of the medieval passion play. Michael performed splendedly.

Michael also was so helpful during the production that he got listed in the program as assistant stage manager. He even did a dive worthy of the major league to save my harp when it was it was almost blown over by the wind. He accompanied me on almost all of the music used for the show, but he was most impressive in his playing of "The Dark Island."

Gwen, Anastasia, and I played this tune at Michael's memorial service.

Goodbye, Michael. Your joy, love of life, enthusiam, and exhuberance will be forever missed.

Going Solo

I'm not like a lot of other musician friends of mine. I'm not afraid to play solo in public.

Maybe that's because I've also been in theatre for about 31 years. Or more, if you count playing Goldilocks in kindergarten. I wore a blond "wig" made of crepe paper.

Maybe its because my Uncle Joey is a jazz musician, and I grew up thinking improvising was vastly superior to reading music.

I can improvise with ease. I'm a lousy sight-reader.

I do love to be part of a group, adding harmonies, making a good sound together.

But sometimes, it's just easier to go solo.

I say this with some melancholy. Yet again, in yet another group I'm a part of, there has been unrest and bad feelings that have come to a head, and the group is no more. In an effort to make peace, I said I'd do the next gig solo, to take pressure off the group having to perform until problems got resolved. That just seem to bring the problems to a head until the container holding the trio together burst.

I can just cancel the gig. Or I can do a substitute performance, solo.

This kind of angst reminds me of the years and years of offstage drama in the Albuquerque theatre scene's very "small world." That's one of the reasons I stopped doing so much theatre - I crave the drama that's onstage, but I'm so weary of the drama off the stage. Then I found that the music world in our small-big town has its share of angst-ridden moments, too.

But I guess that's just the nature of the human beast, right? We all have our own opinions, feelings, reactions, and actions - and we'll never be able to please everyone all the time.

I need to leave work and go home. By the time I get home, my husband - who's nursing a migraine - will be asleep. I'll go home, sit behind my harp, and play her for a while - solo.

I'm a Harper or Harperist (or Harpy), but not a Harpist

I won't get mad if you call me a harpist, but it's the folk harp (aka "lever" or Celtic) harp that I play, not the orchestral (aka "pedal" or concert) harp. Much more about this in future postings.

It's time to get back in touch with my inner HARPY!

Allow me to introduce my harps to you. I only have two, but they're both very special.

The first harp I bought was my little harp, Ruth. She's a Mezzo 23 string harp made by Blevins Harps. She also called a "lap" harp, because she sits in my lap when I play her. She is made of maple wood, a light, pale, whitish-blonde color.

My bigger harp is Rowan, a Signature 36-string model made by Triplett Harps. She's made of cherry wood, and her color has burnished and deepened, in the six-or-so years since I bought her, to a nice warm reddish brown.

Rowan has beautiful laser etchings of irises and daffodils on her pillar and soundboard. Ruth doesn't have any such enhancements, but she's special nevertheless.

They are both female.

I know, because they told me.

The Party's Over...

Time to move on. Suddenly Last Summer closed on Sunday, the end of its four-week run. It was a good run, with great backstage conversations, very supportive fellow cast members, and some wonderful onstage moments.

Others in the cast are moving immediately into rehearsals for the next show.

Me, I'm taking a theatre break.

Actually, I have some narrator/harper gigs coming up in December, so I'll get to the "Harper" part of this blog pretty soon. I look forward to having a little more time to indulge in music, and make my husband happy by practicing the harp at home (he likes me to play for him.)

So, in the next postings, I'll write about my life as a harper and tell more about the upcoming Celtic Christmas shows. Until then, check out some fun photos about previous Celtic Christmas programs.