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More about Tulsa’s Midwest Harp Festival and professional harpers Lorelei Kaiser Barton and Linda Paul.
Click here to read the feature "A heavenly host of harpists" from the July issue of TulsaPeople magazine.
Lorelei Kaiser Barton received her first harp at age 10 as a Christmas present. She had studied piano since age 5 and viola for nine years. She is the founder and artistic director of the Midwest Harp Academy, which she began in 2005, and the Midwest Harp Festival, 2002. She now serves as president of Tulsa’s Signature Symphony and plays with Tulsa’s Symphony Orchestra and for private events (weddings, receptions, banquets, dinners, etc.) She teaches harp at The University of Tulsa, Oral Roberts University, Tulsa Community College Southeast Campus and at her private studio. Contact her at tulsaharp.com, midwestharpacademy.com or lkbenterprises@sbcglobal.net.
Linda Paul began playing the harp in junior high school at age 14 and continued her studies at The University of Oklahoma. She has performed with orchestras, Broadway shows (“The Fantastics” calls for only a harp, piano, drums and bass), at folk festivals, with Dave Brubeck and the New Christie Minstrels, on tour, for private events and as a harp therapist. This summer she will tour Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina. She is an ordained deacon at Christ Episcopal Church. Contact her at harplindal@gmail.com or harplinda.com
Midwest Harp Festival will draw 40 participants, students and professionals this year from across the United States and abroad. Two sisters will come from Korea. Classes and workshops will be held on the Oral Roberts University campus. Harp music is hard to find, so the festival opens a harp music store for the week.
Click here for more information.
All concerts are free and open to the public:
• Festival Opening Concert — Monday, July 19, 7:30 p.m.
Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian Church, 4102 E. 61st St.
• Solo Competition Winners’ Recital — Tuesday, July 20,
7:30 p.m.
Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian Church, 4102 E. 61st St.
• Jazz Harp Concert — Thursday, July 22, 7:30 p.m.
Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian Church, 4102 E. 61st St.
• Jazz Concert with Two-Tone Harp/Bass Duo — Friday, July 23, 6-7 p.m., pre-concert presentation; 7:30 p.m., concert
Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame, 111 E. First St.
• Festival Ensemble Concert — Saturday, July 24, 11 a.m.
Oral Roberts University, Timko-Barton Recital Hall, 7777 S. Lewis Ave.
Did you know?
• How much a harp costs? Paul and Barton play harps that cost $16,000-$30,000.
• How big are harps? They come in different sizes and types — pedal, lever, electric, folk, Celtic, Irish and more. A concert grand harp stands slightly less than 6 feet tall and weighs 80-90 pounds.
Space-age technology is changing the instrument and Paul now plays a French-made Carmac harp made of airplane material that weighs only 50 pounds. Barton teaches pedal and lever kinds of harps and owns five of her own.
• How does a harpist transport her instrument? “Violinists can drive a smart car,” Paul says. Harpists use long-bed vehicles, from station wagons to vans. “Gas mileage of large vehicles adds to the expenses of being a harpist,” she says. Harpists traveling by air rent harps locally.
• Who would have thought? “’Clare de Lune” does not translate well on the harp, Paul says, “but ‘Amazing Grace’ does.” Most requested? “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “Send in the Clowns” and Debussy compositions. Paul’s own favorite? “Misty” and her own jazz rendition of “Greensleeves.”
• Who says only females play harps? At least one of the 40-plus participants of this year’s Midwest Harp Festival is male — a 10-year-old boy from Lincoln, Neb. It will be his third year at the festival.
