Erin H. Newton Classical Harpist

2007-07-26T12:44:00.003-06:00

"If Music be the Food of Love, Play on!" Twelfth Night, Shakespeare

Profile

2006-02-19T15:18:00.003-07:00

Erin H. Newton (see her website: www.coloradoharpist.com) has 20 years of experience performing for weddings and special occasions. She began playing at the age of 7 in California with Penny Beavers, the renowned pop composer and arranger of central California. At the age of 14, Erin was one of 3 harpists awarded a grant to study at the California State Summer School of the Arts with contemporary harpist, Suzan Allan. Erin studied music at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts where she practiced technical mastery with the classically trained harpist, Felice Swados. She continued playing with New Zealand musicians while she studied geology down under for 3 years, and after completing her masters degree, toured Europe with a New Zealand dance troupe. Upon moving to Colorado, she continued studies with Principal harpist of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Courtney Hershey Bress.

Erin currently plays regularly for the Brown Palace Hotel High Tea, performs for weddings, plays with several orchestras and ensembles, and teaches harp lessons. Recently she was featured in the University of Colorado Light Opera summer performances of "A Little Night Music" and "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." She was invited to play for the Annual Strings in the Mountains Garden Tour in Steamboat Springs as a featured artist and has been selected by the Steamboat Springs Chamber Orchestra as a soloist for concerts and fundraisers.

With her experience in helping make important events run smoothly, she has helped numerous wedding organizers and bridal parties from all over the United States make their special day run smoothly. For bookings, please contact Erin at (303)253-5090 or email her at coloradoharpist@yahoo.com.

Musical Selections

2006-02-18T14:46:00.000-07:00

Classical Favorites

Composer: Piece
Debussy: Claire de Lune
Bach: Ave Maria
Bach: Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
Bach: Arioso
Bach: Air on the G String
Beethoven: Ode to Joy
Clark: The Traditional Wedding March
Handel: Air from The Water Music
Handel: Allegro
Handel: Largo from Xerxes
Pachelbel: Cannon in D
Purcell: Trumpet Voluntary (Recessional)
Saint-Saens: The Swan from "The Carnival of Animals"
Vivaldi: Winter Largo

Popular Favorites

Composer: Piece
Enya: No Holly for Miss Quinn
Enya: Caribbean Blue
George Gershwin: Someone to Watch over Me
George Gershwin: I've got Rhythm
Rogers and Hammerstein: Edelweiss from "The Sound of Music"
Larry Henley/Jeff Silbar: Wind Beneath My Wings from "Beaches"
Shania Twain: From this Moment
Andrew Lloyd Webber: Think of Me from "Phantom of the Opera"

Please contact me for a free consultation. I am happy to play requests when music is available.

About Erin's Harp

2006-02-16T14:03:00.000-07:00

The Petite Daphne 40 String Pedal Harp is a 3/4-size double-action harp handcrafted by Salvi's Italian craftsmen of maple and spruce. Spruce is hand-selected from the tone-rich forests of Europe, the same forests from which the world's greatest violins have been produced, and solid White Maple from forests of Upper Michigan is chosen for its stability and resilience.

Designed with an elegant contemporary column and straight soundboard, the Daphne harp is capable of delicacy with a rich, deep tone. Responsible for bearing almost one and a quarter (1-1/4) tons of tension, the column is tilted against the angled pull of the strings, creating a balanced and stable triangle of column, strings, and neck. Each piece of high-quality European spruce used in Salvi soundboards, which also bear several tons of tension, is tested with an Ultrasound meter to discover the potential acoustical output for a particular piece of spruce. Salvi master craftsmen and engineers can then pinpoint the optimum location on the soundboard for that piece of spruce to produce a balanced tonal quality.

Extreme height: 64 1/2" - 164 cm

Extreme width: 34 1/2" - 88 cm

Weight: 58 1/2 lbs. - 26.5 kg

Extreme soundboard width: 15" - 38 cm

Number of strings: 40Range: Top Oct. E to 6th A

Erin's Daphne is installed with a Fishman Pickup and she uses a Crate Limosine Amplifier when playing outdoors or for larger events.

Introduction to the Harp

2006-02-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

Harps around the World

There are many different types of harps. Some harps are more popular in certain parts of the world such as the Celtic Harp, played from 700 A.D. in Ireland. This harp, also called a lever harp, remains an important part of Irish and Scottish cultures and is played all over the world. The Paraguayan Harp, which serves as Paraguay's national instrument, is played all over South America and is becoming increasingly popular in the United States. The Pedal harp, or classical harp, was evolving in France during the 18th Century and is currently used in symphonies throughout the world.

Varieties

A harp might have lever action or pedal action, it could be double-strung, triple-strung, or cross-strung, and it may be tuned to concert C or another modal tuning scheme. Harps are strung with wire, nylon, or gut strings. The typical orchestral concert harp in the United States has pedals, is single strung (one row of strings) and has wire and gut strings to obtain the fullest sound. Small harps have around 22 strings and the largest harps found in symphony orchestras have 47 strings.

Tuning

Most harps in the United States are organized much like the white keys on the piano. The pitch of the strings in order are:

C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C

A color-coding system is used so that the player can locate the correct strings. Traditionally, every C is red, and every F is black or blue. Paraguayan harps, however, are tuned five halftones higher than classical harps thus having red strings as the F note and blue strings as B flat (Sometimes C). These harps use "taquitos" or wooden rods pressed against the strings to obtain sharp notes much like levers on Irish harps. Sharp and flat notes are played on a symphony harp by changing pedals at the base of the harp, each pedal corresponding to a note on the harp.

The Pedal Harp

The pedal harp has 7 pedals each with 3 positions: up, middle and down. When the pedal is in the up position, the note is flat. When the pedal is in the middle position, the note is natural. When the pedal is in the down position, the note is sharp.

From left to right, the pedals are: D C B E F G A

As shown above, there are 3 pedals on the left side of the harp and 4 pedals on the right side of the harp. Most of the time, the left foot works the pedals on the left, and the right foot works the pedals on the right.

Each pedal is connected to a rod that runs up through the harp column. The rod is connected to a series of links that are connected to pronged mechanisms at the top of each string. Moving the pedal causes the pronged mechanisms to move, which pinches the string and changes the pitch. When the pedal is in the flat position, the string is not pinched. When the pedal is in the natural position, one of the mechanisms pinches the strings and shortens it slightly. When the pedal is in the sharp position, both mechanisms pinch the string, shortening it even more. Sometimes, if two neighboring pedals are placed in the flat and sharp positions, the same note can be played on two different strings.

The Harp Maker--Victor Salvi

2006-02-13T14:06:00.000-07:00

Victor Salvi was born in Chicago in the 1920s. He was the youngest son of Rodolfo Salvi, a talented Venetian violinmaker and harp restorer from Venice, who lived in Viggiano, a small town in the South of Italy renowned for its harpists. Rodolfo immigrated to Chicago with his family fleeing the First World War and it was here where Victor was born. His sister Aida, the harpist of the Chicago Opera House and a well-known composer, was Victor's first tutor of the harp. Alberto, the eldest son, was also a harpist whose prosperous career made the celebrated Nicanor Zabaleta declared him as "The greatest harpist of all time".

Victor was not only a harpist but also a harp maker. He began studying the science of the instrument whilst in the Navy and after consulting with engineers and experts he embarked on building his very own harp. The drive was to construct an instrument that would have a better mechanism and thus better sound. The first prototype came to live in 1954, in a basement workshop in New York.

In 1955 Victor moved to Italy in the quest for his roots and in the search of craftsmanship. The Salvi Harps Company was founded in Genoa, at the beautiful Villa Maria. Later it moved to Piasco, a small village nestled in the rolling hills of northern Italy where the tradition of wood working dates back to medieval times. With the help of the local craftmen Victor turned Salvi harps into one of the leading producers of harps in the world which now has several outlets including Tokyo, London and Paris.

In the 1980s Victor turned his interest towards the eldest and first harp makers in America, Lyon & Healy. He had played their harps during his younger years and always admired the precise nature of their products. It was with enthusiasm that he acquired the company to restore it to its old glory.

Victor Salvi made many advances for the concert pedal harp. Intensive research on the mechanics of the harp led to the introduction of the first corrosion-resistant stainless-steel action. This action utilizes specially engineered nylon bushings and double bearing surfaces to reduce friction within the harp, thus, allowing the pedals to move freely with the action, in one silent, fluid motion. Salvi strove to further improve the performance capabilities of the harp through the invention of a high-grade laminated neck. The resilience of this laminated neck adds structural resistance to the pull of the strings, safeguarding the harp against any damage to the neck while sustaining its intonation.

--Excerpted from http://www.thevictorsalvifoundation.com/