Don't you love it when something turns out even better than expected?

I just had to share my excitement about my February 19 performance at the Culver Coffee Company with Marcy Prochaska on hammered dulcimer and recorder. (I played a bit of tenor recorder myself.) We've performed before, briefly, at St. Mary of the Lake Catholic Church in Culver, during a penance service, and had so much fun that we knew eventually we'd want to prepare something else.

We stayed in the public domain (music out of copyright) which meant mostly folk tunes and classical arrangements. Some of the tunes we arranged were: Hyfrydol, Slane, St. Columba, Do You Love An Apple?, Drive The Cold Winter Away, Canon in D Major by Pachelbel, Sheep May Safely Graze by J.S. Bach, and (my favorite) the Largo from Vivaldi's Lute Concerto in D Major.

At first, concert harp and hammered dulcimer might seem like strange bedfellows, but we found that together, the two instruments had a unique, appealing compatibility. The wire-strung hammered dulcimer has a more sustained tone, which complemented the rounder tone of the concert harp.

Enjoy this video, done in a very casual setting among friends, and stay tuned!

music, parents, and destiny

My earliest memories of my home involve music; a dizzying array of various styles of music. My parents, Tom and Elaine Fugate, were music lovers. Mom and Dad played the clarinet in high school, and Mom continued to play piano, mostly for her own enjoyment, and then organ for our Methodist church in Mentone, Indiana. I can't honestly say that she performed on the church organ out of sheer enjoyment. Many a Sunday morning found her at our home organ, fretting about a prelude piece that wasn't coming together as she would have liked.

The Magnavox stereo in our dining room, a combination turntable/8-track, had a storage bin that held, among many others, 8-tracks and LPs of: the soundtracks from Hair, Grease and Midnight Cowboy; An American in Paris and Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin, original cast recordings from The Sound of Music, West Side Story, and My Fair Lady; Switched-On Bach, A Perry Como Christmas, Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, Queen, Beach Boys, John Denver, The Kentucky Woman (South Bend's own Nancy Flanagan), Christmas with Joe Longstreth and John Escosa, (mentioned in a previous post), Hooked On Classics (confession time--I LOVED those recordings!)--that's just a start. Whew--what an interesting mix!

With such a varied musical upbringing, I've been pretty open to all sorts of musical styles. I suppose it wasn't a coincidence that when I first read last spring that Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys would be releasing a new recording titled "Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin" in August, it took me less than a minute to log in to Amazon and put it on my wish list.

One track in particular caught my ear, and, truth be told, the ear of my five-year-old son Alex too. (We finally had to limit the number of times he listened to it at a time.) It's actually a tune that Wilson crafted from two unpublished Gershwin sources. The soaring Gershwin melody, trademark Brian Wilson out-of-nowhere chords, and the tight Beach-Boy-style background harmony make "The Like In I Love You" a truly
ethereal experience to listen to. It sounds as if it would be gorgeous on harp, and I'm working on an arrangement. I hope to post a video very soon!

Stay tuned!

"Beth, how did you ever get interested in the harp?"

I am often asked this question; after all, the harp is a pretty unusual instrument. Here's one of the chapters in the story:

I must have been thirteen or so, when I first became aware of the harp, other than knowing harps existed. My parents had season tickets to a concert series in nearby Warsaw, Indiana, and my younger brother and I were encouraged to dress up a bit and accompany Mom and Dad to the concerts. My brother and I experienced a variety of musicians there at Warsaw Community High School: duo-pianists Ferrante & Teicher, Bill Evans, a amazing organist whose name escapes me, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, George Shearing, and many more.

This particular concert featured Joe Longstreth and John Escosa, duo-harpists. (A quick web search shows that they performed extensively on community concert series during the 1970's.) I was intrigued by the visual beauty of the harps, the mysterious way they pulled their harps back onto their shoulders, the tiny movements I kept noticing near the curved top of the harp, and last but certainly not least, the completely entrancing music they produced.

Years later, as I began learning harp music to use professionally, I came across several arrangements for harp of old standards and popular music by none other than John Escosa. They were all expertly done, utilizing the fun and unique sound effects one can produce on harp such as the glissando, the pedal slide, and the harmonic.

Fast forwarding a little more, one night as I was playing cocktail music for an event at Century Center, a band was setting up on the stage behind me. I performed one of my favorites, John Escosa's playful arrangement of "Ain't Misbehavin'" (not what most people think of when they think of harp music!). Shortly afterward, a member of the band hopped down from the stage, asked my name, and made a little conversation. He observed that I had just played "Ain't Misbehavin'", then extended his hand and said, "I'm John Escosa II, and that's some of the best playing I've heard of Dad's charts."

You just never know who's in the audience.

Stay tuned for more!

Have you ever had a detour turn out well?

With two performances on piano last week, and three on harp this week, I marvelled once again at the unexpected things that can happen in one's life. Back in the early 80's, I was a music education student at Indiana University School of Music (now Jacobs School of Music) with a concentration in piano. All was OK, but there was no zeal in what I
was doing...until one evening which changed everything.

All piano students were required to be in an ensemble, and I was assigned to the Women's Chorus. We were to sing in the orchestra pit during the university production of the Nutcracker Ballet (a part at the end of the first act which is usually covered by strings in professional productions) and I was placed right behind the harpists. I was  entranced. Already familiar with the Waltz of the Flowers harp cadenza from my parents' music collection, I got a front seat to beautiful harp music in the ballet score that I had never heard before.

The next semester, the first thing I did was to sign up for beginner harp lessons. Before I knew it, I was taking private lessons from esteemed harp instructor Linda Wood Rollo and taking part in Susann McDonald's weekly master classes. My life was forever changed by the wonderful harpists I met and became colleagues with. The following year brought a change from piano study to harp and a world of new possibilities.

That made it all the more special when I began receiving calls to play in the South Bend Symphony Orchestra a few years later, and when I served as the harpist for the Southold Dance Theater's production of the Nutcracker Ballet during the years that they used live music.

I am so grateful for this unexpected detour that has added so much to my life. Stay tuned!

past, present and future

Ever come across a box of old photos and get lost in time for an hour or two? That happened to me last week, as I found not only the photo I posted last week, but all sorts of memorabilia and this photo, taken by master photographer Gary Mester, intended for a future Christmas recording. A little reminiscing was in order. Here are a few of my more memorable experiences as a harpist, not in any particular order:

• a stunning cocktail party in Potawatomi Greenhouse in South Bend in the spring, the sunset gleaming through the glass, amazing acoustics, little white lights everywhere, delicious appetizers.
• an outdoor July wedding at the Asticou Inn in Northeast Harbor, Maine, in a postcard-worthy setting overlooking Northeast Harbor. It just could not have been a more gorgeous day--temperature in the 70's, completely blue sky, a gentle breeze, and behind the bride and groom, that picturesque harbor. I played harp for the prelude, alto recorder for the processional, harp for the rest of the ceremony, and cocktail piano for the reception--my version of being jack-of-all-trades!
• an amazing evening at Century Center in South Bend, at a wedding reception that was nothing short of spectacular. Again, those little white lights all over (I guess I have a weakness for anything that sparkles--click here!), and fireworks over the St. Joseph River.
• a South Bend Symphony Orchestra Pops! concert, with guest artist saxophonist Danny Lerman. The harp part was well written and just fun, with a neat little solo for the harpist in one of the pieces.

Maybe the most memorable event would have been the one that almost happened. I was contacted by a couple in Bar Harbor, Maine, to play for their wedding. It was to take place on a private island in Frenchman Bay, and I was to load the harp onto a lobster boat, along with the guests, and then the harp was to be carried by the groomsmen to the wedding site, the highest point on the island (there were no paved roads for using the harp cart). Ultimately, the couple decided to have a guitar-playing friend provide their music, and since I had already started worrying about rough seas and careless groomsmen, I was relieved.

Thanks for walking down Memory Lane with me!

I hope to finish that aforementioned Christmas recording next year. For more past, present and future musings, stay tuned....

What are YOUR requests for harp?

Paul and I came across this photo in our files last week. It's the cover photo from my cassette recording! Master photographer Gary Mester took this portrait in his studio, and Jerry Lackey, longtime principal tuba with the South Bend Symphony Orchestra (and conductor/composer/arranger extrordinaire) did the recording on a Saturday morning in the spring of 1996. The title was "Requests for Harp", and I had them for sale locally and at the Bar Harbor Inn in Bar Harbor, Maine, where I was the summer harpist for eight summers in the 90's.

That made me wonder--what would YOU like to hear on harp now, in 2010? In 1996, the common requests were for music from movies such as The Lion King, Forrest Gump, Somewhere In Time, Sleepless In Seattle, and shows such as Phantom of the Opera and Cats. I've updated my repertoire recently with selections from Pride and Prejudice, Up, Howl's Moving Castle and The Notebook. Standards such as "Someone To Watch Over Me" and "Misty" will always be in my collection, and no harpist's gig bag would be complete without timeless classical selections such as Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel,  J.S. Bach's Prelude in C, and Claude Debussy's Clair de Lune.

So--what do you think? What would make my collection current? I am eager to hear from you! Stay tuned--Beth Paré

Here come the brides....

For years, the Bridal Expo at the Joyce Center of the University of Notre Dame campus was part of the rhythm of my life. Early in January, my husband Paul and I would begin preparing, making sure we had enough brochures, song lists, business cards, and the latest in wedding music.  It was a pleasure to work with great people such as the kind folks from the WSBT radio group and fabulous DJ Thom Jegier, aka "The Hitman".

Now I'm about to register once again. The 2011 Bridal Expo will take place on January 15, and what fun it will be to meet all of the couples and their friends and relatives! That's the part I enjoyed the most; talking to people, answering their questions about wedding music and harps. (Yes, I can play piano sheet music; no, the performance isn't over if I break a string--I bring extras. Yes, I play Stairway to Heaven.)

It was a treat to come home at the end of a long but productive day and find that, sometimes, I had already received phone messages asking about my availability. The next day proved exciting as well, bringing more inquiries about dates and venues.

Maybe I'll see you in a few short months at this great event. In addition to performing and providing information on wedding music and availability, I'll have a fantastic door prize along with the other vendors--what else?--a  Silpada Designs Jewelry gift certificate!
Stay tuned--Beth Paré