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BegEnz in 2018 - we're moving our rehearsal to Saturday afternoons - to allow more harpies to get here - It looks like we will have 15-18 harpies here this year - so exciting!!!!
Our dates for the first half of 2018 Feb 17, March 3, April 7, May 5, May 19 (sorry very close together, but we have lots of harp events this term!) June 16 Harpy New Year!!! - we're back in 2017 with a new music book, some new harpies and will be working towards Harpenz, a concert in August, and Harp in the Park in December.
Our rehearsal dates Feb 16, March 9, April 6,May 11, June 1, June 22, Aug 3, Aug 24, Sept 21,Oct 19, Nov 16, Nov 30 Don't forget that next Saturday, 3rd December, 2016, from 3-5pm we will be having some harping fun at Harp in the Park, Blockhouse Bay Boat Club Reserve. The weather ahead looks great, but its sometimes a little chilly down by the water, under the shade of the trees. Bring your harp (the smallest one you can play on!), your Sylvia Woods Carol book, and a picnic rug/something to sit on (there are only very few sparsely spaced park benches). Also, please bring something to share for afternoon tea - its a chance to spoil ourselves with our harp friends! We'll have a few extra wee harps there in case any one passing wants to try out a harp, and someone there to answer any harp related questions from passers-by (can you tell we have done this a few times now!!!) See you there - its such fun!!!
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What is BegEnz??? We are a beginner harp ensemble and we meet 3 times in the school term to rehearse new music together.
In 2016, we trialed a new ensemble book (arranged by Anna) in which there are 3 versions of each tune - an easy tune with very basic left hand, a tune and slightly harder left hand, and a slightly harder accompaniment part - it was a great success! Not only did we learn the 16 tunes in the book, we also worked on a number of rounds, a carol medley, a new composition of Anna's called 'Adso the Cat', which we played with AHO, a simplified part to Janet Whitman's Christmas Canon ..... that is a lot of music to play together in 12 rehearsals across the year. We are also a group of beginner adults and kids up to Grade 3 in ability (after that we join AHO) - kids ranging right up to 60+ years,we rehearse in Blockhouse Bay for an hour, 3x a term, and it costs $30 per person, per term. Most of the original BegEnz members have graduated up to the Auckland Harp Orchestra now - so in 2018 we will going back to basics - starting the BegEnz book one again (we did book 2 in 2017) so please get in touch if you would like to join us. |
Here's our latest photo - it was just for fun - a panoramic photo in my small music studio - but we easily fitted in 12 harpists and have room for more as you can see!
(you can even see my favourite Andreas Vollenwieder album on the left hand side!!) All these harps are NZ made! (photo - Wendy - July 28 2016)
(you can even see my favourite Andreas Vollenwieder album on the left hand side!!) All these harps are NZ made! (photo - Wendy - July 28 2016)
Performance - July 9th, 2pm at the Waitakere Library, Henderson, Auckland - hang around to have a go on a harp!!!! Spot some of these lovely harpists there!!!
'Look at this gorgeous group of harpists!!! They are the founding members of BegEnz - the Beginner Harp Ensemble. Our first rehearsal was Feb18th 2016 and we astounded ourselves with how great we could all sound together!!! What an awesome team of harpists!!!!!
Front:- Sabina, David, Kayla, Lennard, Lucy.Back:- Anna, Lynx, Marie-Christine, Denise, Odyssee, Deborah, Joshua (absent - Tabea, Astar and team coach, Wendy)
We're learning a bunch of tunes, which Anna teaches us a beginners, but then has also arranged into increasingly challenging parts. So if we're feeling like a challenge we can try a harder part, or if its already been a tough day we can play a simpler part, or just one hand of a part. It all fits together really well, and no one is under any pressure to maintain their part. We're aged 6 years (ok, almost 7 and appearing here with our brand new Stewart harps (David and Lennard in the front) right up to 60 plus, and some of us have been learning for a year or quite a few more. Anyone can join this group after just a few lessons, and a bit of knowledge about the harps and the tunes we are learning. It certainly helped some of us to have an MP3 of the basic tune to play along with at home!
On the day we also played some rounds, which we learnt on the spot! Through the repetition we were all able to play some part, either the tune or the drone part, and put it all together. Then came the fun - when we felt confident enough, we could individually 'break out' from following the main group, repeat the last fragment of the tune, and find ourselves playing a separate part in the round. We learnt to improvise on parts of the tune, through using repeats, playing in different places on our harps and creating repeated chord patterns to make it more interesting and change the texture of the ensemble. Whatever we did sounded great!!!
For the next rehearsal we're going to be playing another two tunes (that brings our total to six) and another handful of rounds (total of 8) and work on making good arrangements of the pieces we played in our first rehearsal.
Next time we're hoping for no rain, so we can 'assemble the ensemble' out on the deck and share our sounds with the neighbourhood!!
Front:- Sabina, David, Kayla, Lennard, Lucy.Back:- Anna, Lynx, Marie-Christine, Denise, Odyssee, Deborah, Joshua (absent - Tabea, Astar and team coach, Wendy)
We're learning a bunch of tunes, which Anna teaches us a beginners, but then has also arranged into increasingly challenging parts. So if we're feeling like a challenge we can try a harder part, or if its already been a tough day we can play a simpler part, or just one hand of a part. It all fits together really well, and no one is under any pressure to maintain their part. We're aged 6 years (ok, almost 7 and appearing here with our brand new Stewart harps (David and Lennard in the front) right up to 60 plus, and some of us have been learning for a year or quite a few more. Anyone can join this group after just a few lessons, and a bit of knowledge about the harps and the tunes we are learning. It certainly helped some of us to have an MP3 of the basic tune to play along with at home!
On the day we also played some rounds, which we learnt on the spot! Through the repetition we were all able to play some part, either the tune or the drone part, and put it all together. Then came the fun - when we felt confident enough, we could individually 'break out' from following the main group, repeat the last fragment of the tune, and find ourselves playing a separate part in the round. We learnt to improvise on parts of the tune, through using repeats, playing in different places on our harps and creating repeated chord patterns to make it more interesting and change the texture of the ensemble. Whatever we did sounded great!!!
For the next rehearsal we're going to be playing another two tunes (that brings our total to six) and another handful of rounds (total of 8) and work on making good arrangements of the pieces we played in our first rehearsal.
Next time we're hoping for no rain, so we can 'assemble the ensemble' out on the deck and share our sounds with the neighbourhood!!
