opera singers anon

Well, I completely forgot to tell you that it's not me that does the opera singing - definitely not!!!
I have been accompanying James Hutton for about 10 years or so now. He lives in Stanbury near us and is officially a Baritone ... but has been known to sing Tenor on occasion. In fact he tells me his voice is getting higher and is trying to change the keys of a few tunes. I say 'trying'. It is sometimes impossibly difficult and takes a huge amount of time to change keys on the tripleharp. Every 'move' has to be planned and practised - not like the piano where you can learn your scales and it gives you a thorough grounding. Also whereas the piano has 5 'black notes' for every 7 'white notes' the multistrung harp has 7 for each!

Anyway, back to the point, James and I have a gig coming up in Haworth at Cobbles and Clay on 3rd September and will be dueting our mostly Neapolitan repertoire - with added bells ... hmmmm! (James wasn't sure at first but I persisted and the audience loved the added touch of flamenco.)

I am at Burnley Community Festival - on main stage and mostly in the Woodland Tent this Sunday. Last year I had a wonderful afternoon. Robin Shepherd was making his clogs and did a spot on his violin every now and then. Fantastic stuff. All my kids wore clogs for the first 5 years (alas the school couldn't stand the noise of them clattering across the wooden floors...).

More news of harps very soon - with pictures - amazing developments afoot ....