Les Jeudis de la Harpe, Season V
Les Jeudis de la Harpe, our popular YouTube concerts, are returning to the silver screen for a fifth series. This time, there’s a twist: we’re going on tour!
Live concerts have resumed in many parts of the world, but many musicians are still facing travel challenges. Les Jeudis de la Harpe has therefore packed a suitcase of lights, cameras and action and is broadcasting from the artists’ home countries. From Brazil to China, Japan to Germany, we are looking forward to a great variety of backdrops and, as ever, musical styles.
We’ll keep you guessing about where we’re travelling each week, but joining us will be easy as ever. Log on to our YouTube channel every Thursday at 19:30 CET for the concert premier and live chat, or simply catch up later. All concerts last about half an hour, a perfect way to wind down after a busy day at work, and are free of charge to view.
The final concert in series V of Les Jeudis de la Harpe welcomes Charles Overton. One of the most brilliant jazz harpists of his generation, Charles studied at the Berklee Global Jazz Institute. His colleagues joining him this Thursday, July 7 are also alumni of this prestigious institution: welcome to Max Ridley (bass) and Lee Fish (drums).
We are very proud that Charles has already performed at our festivals in Washington, Lyon, Pasadena and Ancenis. We also thoroughly recommend his debut album, Convergence, which can give you an idea of the treat in store for you!
Click on the programme below to discover more about the artists. As you’ll also see, their set will consist of three original compositions, interspersed with free improvisations.
Intrigued? Musical inspiration is just a click of the mouse away, as ever 19:30 CET, @CamacHarpsOfficial on YouTube.
Scotland is an important country in Camac’s history: It was at the famous International Harp Festival in Edinburgh that Joël Garnier launched the first Camac electroharp (1984), and the first prototype of our ultralight DHC wearable e-harp is now in Glasgow’s National Museum. The Scottish harp community is distinguished by its ever-creative fusion of traditional music, pop, jazz, contemporary and experimental voices, and its artists continue to inspire and co-developed our Celtic instruments.
Les Jeudis de la Harpe now proudly present one of Scotland’s leading representatives of the new generation of Celtic harpists. Ailie Robertson is a multi-award winning composer, performer and creative curator whose work crosses the boundaries of traditional and contemporary music. Recent commissions include pieces for the 2019 BBC Proms, The London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sound Festival, the Riot Ensemble, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Bang on a Can, the Dunedin Consort, and the Glasgow School of Art Choir. She is currently Composer-in-Residence for Sound Scotland and Glyndebourne Opera.
Awarded LiveIreland’s ‘Female Musician of the Year’, and the prize for ‘Innovation in Traditional Music’ in the Scottish Awards for New Music, her synthesis of Scottish, Irish and contemporary harping technique into an individual style represents the realization of “otherwise unimagined possibilities for the Celtic harp”.
Come and join us for the penultimate screening in this series of Les Jeudis de la Harpe: Thursday, June 30, 19:30 as ever on YouTube.
The combination of harp, violin and cello is lovely but relatively little-known. We’re delighted to have a chance to hear it on Les Jeudis de la Harpe!
The Jenlis Trio is, as their name suggests, a family group: Belgian harpist Héloïse de Jenlis, her sister Mathilde (violin) and her brother Axel (cello). They will perform their own arrangements of famous classics, original repertoire by Henriette Renié, and a movement from one of their own commissions – Karol Beffa’s Soleil Noir.
Coming up on Thursday, June 23, 19:30, @CamacHarpsOfficial on YouTube.
Tara Minton is no stranger to the Camac stages. We have supported her since her move to London in 2011, after Jakez François heard her first single. Since then, Tara has released three further albums, completed jazz Masters studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and performed at famous venues the length and breadth of the UK and abroad. We also recommend her jazz podcast together with Rob Cope, in conversation with musicians around the world.
Tara’s success has been crowned recently with a major mark of recognition in London: she’ll be making her debut at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club on July 18th, performing music from her second album Please Do Not Ignore The Mermaid.
Tara and Ed Babar have been playing together for eight years, and have also just released an album: Two for the Road, on Jazzizit Records. Our YouTube concert this Thursday’s concert is your chance to experience the album’s beautiful blend of standards in the combination of harp and double bass.
Les Jeudis de la Harpe are back to France this week – and the creative hub that is Frédéric Bougouin’s studio. Frédéric is particularly fond of the metal-strung lever harp, and the electric harp, combined with sound processing and effects. Both are centre-stage in his concert for us!
We say “back to France”, but Fréderic will led us on a musical journey from Cuba to the desert city of Ourouk, from original compositions to a Carla Bley cover, and music inspired by (indeed, written for) theatre, rock bands, and a dear friend. Don’t miss a unique and entrancing half an hour, @CamacHarpsOfficial on YouTube, Thursday June 9 at 19:30 CET.
June 2’s online concert takes us all the way to Tokyo – for a musical meeting with a dear friend. Mai Fukui, now professor at the Tokyo University of the Arts, is well-known in both Europe and Asia. This Thursday, she has selected a programme to match!
“For this concert”, Mai writes, “I would like to share some of the classics of French harp music. I spent twelve years in Paris, and French music has truly been a part of my life. Out of so many beautiful pieces, I have chosen Pierné’s Impromptu-Caprice, Roussel’s Impromptu, Arabesque N° 1 by Debussy and the Fauré Impromptu.
At the same time and especially for this occasion, I wanted to share a brand new piece, “Floating Fireflies”, composed by the Japanese composer Dai Fujikura. I co-commissioned this piece with Stef Van Vynckt in 2021; Stef gave the Belgian premier and I gave the Japanese one!
As the composer states, the music appears to float or hover, without a particular direction. I like to think of the fireflies with their beautiful lights, suspended between Europe and Japan.”
Join us for this beautiful moment of exchange and friendship on Thursday, June 2, premier 19:30, @CamacHarpsOfficial on YouTube.
Andreas Mildner (Germany) is one of the most interesting harpists of his generation. His “technical brilliance” and “incredibly beautiful timbres” are praised by audiences and critics alike.
The first prize winner of the 2009 Arpista Ludovico International Competition in Madrid, he is also the winner of numerous other prizes and scholarships, included the German Music Competition, the Bavarian Culture Prize, the Bavarian Kunstförderpreis, from the Jürgen Ponto Foundation and the German Music Council.
Following an orchestral career as Principal Harpist with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, Andreas Mildner is now Professor at the Würzburg Hochschule. He is a well-known soloist and chamber musician, also in duos with Heinz Holliger and Andreas Martin Hofmeir.
For Les Jeudis de la Harpe, Andreas Mildner offers us an all-German/Austrian programme: JS Bach’s Italian Concerto, Ernst Krenek’s Sonate für Harfe, and the Spohr C Minor Fantasy.
Have you ever seen – or heard – the Urutau bird? The Sabiá, the Tiê de Topete Vermelho or the Curió? May 19’s online concert features the song of all these birds, and more, in the heart of the Brazilian forest.
Cristina Braga and Ricardo Medeiros will be performing in Uaná Etê, their forest garden in the mountains near Rio de Janeiro. As you can imagine, they are accompanied by a host of beautiful birds. They have even linked each of their songs to a particular species.
Christina and Ricardo’s unique blend of blue harp, bass, traditional music and jazz has put the harp with Brazilian soul well and truly on the map. They have a wonderful discography of 18 classical and pop albums, from Samba, Jazz and Love to the Bossa Nova Brandenburg Concerto. If you haven’t yet had the chance to experience them in concert: don’t miss your perfect opportunity, this Thursday on YouTube at 19:30 Paris time.
Our second Jeudi de la Harpe online concert is going to travel far away from Paris – all the way to China, and Beijing’s world-famous Forbidden City concert hall.
We have had the pleasure of working with Guan Wang several times already. She was our honoured guest at the Camac Festival in Belfort (2018), and in 2019 we were delighted to welcome her, her colleagues and many of her students for a musical tour of France.
Professor of Harp at the China Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and Principal Harpist of the China National Symphony Orchestra, Guan will perform her Jeudi de la Harpe concert with her colleague Ma Wen (cello). Harp and cello is a beautiful and still unusual combination: join us on May 12, 19:30 Paris time on YouTube to experience it for yourselves.
The opening concert of Camac Harps’s fifth YouTube series will take place on May 5 2022 at 19:30 CET. Veronika Lemishenko, Principal Harpist with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, will perform as part of her European tour to raise funds for Ukraine. If you would like to donate to Veronika’s charitable foundation, you can do so here.
