Email
PrintA heavenly host of harpists
This summer's Midwest Harp Festival offers classes, workshops and free concerts.
Linda Paul, front, and Lorelai Kaiser Barton
A troupe of actors, a company of dancers, a band of musicians — what do you call a whole lot of harp players?
“Harpists,” say Lorelei Kaiser Barton and Linda Paul, of the Midwest Harp Festival, which will be held July 19-24 at Oral Roberts University.
Both women are professional harpists and passionate about the instrument. They teach the harp, concertize, tour and perform with orchestras and at private functions. They are two of Tulsa’s only four professional harpists. They are, coincidentally, sisters-in-law, connected by both harp and heart.
More than 40 student and professional harpists will gather on the ORU campus and at Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian Church for a week of classes, workshops and free concerts.
“A harp festival is unique for Tulsa,” Barton says. “It’s a fresh experience for summer.”
Today, most harpists are female, but at one time the harp was considered too complicated for a woman to play. Barton laughed at that pre-feminist notion. The instrument is a challenge for many, she concedes; that’s what fascinates her. And it is difficult. Plucking the strings develops such thick calluses on the harpists’ fingers and thumbs, they must be filed; they must also maintain short fingernails.
The harp is the oldest known stringed instrument, dating back 2,500 years; paintings of bow harps have been found in pharaohs’ tombs in ancient Egypt. Until the mid-1880s, men dominated the harp, and no wonder.
“You try carrying around an 80-pound instrument,” Paul says.
The harp moved from the salon into the orchestra thanks to baroque composers such as Handel, Bach and Mozart.
Fast-forward to the 20th century.
“Movie orchestras of the 1950s popularized the harp,” Paul says. “The guy looks at the girl, the harpist plays a glissando (that heavenly sound of a harpist sliding her fingers over the strings) and the audience says, ‘Ahhh.’”
A harpist’s repertoire may include classical, sacred, chamber, orchestral, Broadway, jazz, Celtic and popular music (from The Beatles to Cher).
Beyond entertainment, the sound of live harp music is healing. Remember the Biblical story of David playing his harp (a lyre) to soothe the ailing Saul, king of Israel? Recent medical studies agree. Barton says harp music is used therapeutically in hospitals and hospices, during surgeries, for newborns and to treat chronic pain.
Most of all, harp music is sublimely romantic and beautiful. Paul’s strangest gig? “Playing in a tree house at an outdoor wedding in Tulsa,” she says.
A veritable scene from Shakespeare.
For more on the harp festival and Lorelei Kaiser Barton and Linda Paul, click here.
