Plucky harpists get ready for school date
THE “stunning and unique” ensemble 4 Girls 4 Harps will be performing a concert with a festive flavour at Abbotsholme School in Rocester this month.
Alongside classical pieces by Rimsky-korsakov and Manuel De Falla, their performance, on Friday, December 10, will include well-known carols such as Silent Night, What Child is This, We Three Kings, and I Saw Three Ships.
Arranged by Abbotsholme Arts Society, and beginning at 7.30pm, the concert was part of the quartet’s 2020 series of concerts which were cancelled due to the pandemic. The tour would have marked their 20th anniversary.
Since their formation in 2000, 4 Girls 4 Harps have been heard in numerous venues and at festivals in the UK and across Europe, delighting audiences with their dynamic performances and innovative repertoire.
The quartet has featured on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 2’s Friday Night is Music Night, Classic FM and Welsh television channel, S4C.
They have performed at The World Harp Congress in Dublin, Champs Hill, Fairfield Halls, St George’s, Bristol and at London’s King’s Place.
Harriet Adie, Keziah Thomas, Eleanor Turner and Elizabeth Bass have a shared goal of presenting new works and their own idiomatic transcriptions to show off the full scope of four concert harps.
Many original works have been commissioned by the group, helping them to establish themselves as the leading harp ensemble in Europe.
Their debut album, Fireworks and Fables, was released in 2009 and showcases their own arrangements of impressionist works by Ravel and Saint-saëns as well as new works by the group’s own composers Harriet Adie and Eleanor Turner.
Well received by critics, it is regularly broadcast on national and international radio. December 2013 saw the release of the group’s second album, ‘4 Girls 4 Harps at Christmas,’ an ambitious project which included a 14-date concert tour of venues in London and the Southeast.
Described by the Sunday Express as ‘putting the harp back into the heart of Christmas,’ the album was also favourably reviewed by BBC Music Magazine who wrote “Ensemble is watertight and there is a real rhythmic élan to the playing which keeps you listening”.
The ensemble’s 15th anniversary as a quartet was in 2015. On top of live broadcasts on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune and BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, they celebrated this milestone with a performance of the World Première of an exciting new commission, Tetra, composed by four female British composers.
In addition, they also founded the British Harp Chamber Music Competition (the only competition of its kind in the UK) to encourage other young harpists to perform chamber music and to champion the harp in a chamber music setting.
Not a group to rest on their laurels, 2018 provided several interesting opportunities for the ensemble, with a BBC video of their performance of Shostakovich’s famous Waltz No 2 going ‘viral’ with more than six million views across the world to date.
The quartet was also delighted to have released a new CD with Dutch label STS Digital, featuring an energetic mix of dances by different composers. Earlier that year they also performed a short set of music from the CD in a live performance for Classic FM.
Tickets are £20 and will be available at the door or by calling 01543 263304.
Their debut album was released in 2009 and they have played at festivals and top venues across Europe.