World Harp Competition 2022 - held as part of the Dutch Harp Festival

I was thrilled (and utterly amazed) to be selected as one of the Quarter-Finalists of the World Harp Competition 2022!

Entry to the competition is a bit different to other international harp competitions!

The requirement was to submit a proposal for an original program around 45 minutes long.

The only criteria for the program was that you had to play the harp and any speaking had to be in English.

20 applications were selected to go through to the video round where the requirement was to submit a 5-8 minute long video outlining the full program.

A full list of the Quarter-Finalists and their programme submissions is here: Video Round WHC 2022

Sadly I didn’t make it to the Semi-Finals in Utrecht in May, but my entry (and those of all the other Quarter-Finalists) is below. You can watch the full video which shows all the Quarter-Finalists’ videos (it’s 2.5 hours long) or I’ve saved the link below so that it starts at my video.

I had some incredible feedback from the judges and from my fellow harpists, and I’m developing the program for a future performance.

My program submission:

Dear Mr Bowie - Letters To A Dead Rockstar

In 2016, after the death of David Bowie, and against the background of my struggle to understand my relationship with an instrument which seemed to define me no matter how far I ran from it, I started writing to ‘Mr Bowie’. In these letters I shared some of my thoughts, and I imagined what he might write back. There were three messages he had for me.

While reading some of my letters, accompanied by solo harp pieces and incidental music, I will take the audience along on parts of my journey of discovery since I began playing the harp again as an adult, including the day the music literally stopped.

This will be a performance with pedal harp, electric lever harp and live storytelling.