Elinor Bennett has accepted the Festival Committee's invitation to be our Guest Artist, subject to funding. She is looking forward to spending these few days with us.
Her contributions to the NZ Harp Festival 2004 will include recitals, masterclasses and workshops.
Elinor Bennett is Welsh, and an accomplished performer on lever harps, Welsh triple harps and pedal harps, with many recordings to her credit. She is steeped in the folk harp tradition of Wales, knowledgeable about the other harp traditions of the British Isles, and also well versed in the classical tradition. She sings as well, and performs in Welsh penillion tradition, singing one melody while accompanying herself on the harp playing a different melody! She studied harp at the Royal Academy of Music with Osian Ellis, and is herself an experienced teacher with highly successful students, including Catrin Finch who has just been appointed Royal Harpist. She broadcasts regularly in Britain, and a number of composers have written works especially for her. She has a warm and outgoing personality, and is generous with her knowledge.
Here are some things reviewers have said about her concerts and recordings:
"Elinor Bennett's Purcell Room recital was so interesting and unfailingly musical that I, for one, would have very willingly heard more …" (Musical Opinion, Spring 1994)
"Hooray for a harp recording which breaks out of the mould of the limited range of familiar harp repertoire" (Of her CD Sea of Glass in BBC Music Magazine)
"Throughout Elinor Bennett maintains an admirable control of sonorities, allowing inner melodic lines to gently emerge and disappear and ethereal bass notes to resound without clouding the overall texture of the music" (Of her CD Sea of Glass in CD Review)
"The Welsh lady absolutely fascinated her audience with her virtuosity which was never exploited to promote herself, but rather to convey the music through her intensity and great soloistic mastery" (Kleine Zeitung, Graz, Austria)
"Elinor Bennett, often referred to as the 'harpist's harpist', was just that and more on this occasion as she charmed her audience with her totally professional, yet equally warm demeanour" (Y Drych, Minnesota, USA)
For more detail about Elinor Bennett, visit her wonderful website:
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