Harp Spring in Burghausen (Bavaria)

Brian Boru was a very famous king of Irland way back in the first century. He died in April 1014 and for this 1000th anniversary a group of harp players organised a festival last year. There 60 harps played together the famous march of Brian Boru. I was fascinated, but couldn't go as it was just too far to travel at short notice.

Luckily it was so fantastic, that it was the first Harp Spring - to be followed by many more, hopefully.

This year my harp and I travelled all the way by night train to arrive in time for harp lessons on Thursday. Luckily I had 2 hours of spare time to visit the longest Castle of the world first.

At 1 pm we were all welcomed at the Mautner Castle, used as night school usually. There are enough large rooms for groups of harps and players.

I belonged to the group for music of Turlough O'Carolan and learned very much about the basics of music beside new songs.

Two songs of my group learning Irish tunes 

In the evening was a concert of our teachers and some talented students.

 

Friday was filled with more lessons and the rehersal for the Brian Boru Event where we all would play together the march, as last year, and another song, composed especially for the Harp Spring.

In the evening was a concert for Harp & Guitar in a church in town. It was very interesting.

Saturday was the big day! After final lessons in the morning, the harps were packed and were taken to the place beside a church. Just when the first harps arrived, it started to rain! What should we do? The organisers of the event decided to stay on the save side for the harps and we all moved to the city hall, easy to reach. All the harps fitted in - but not all visitors of the event. When we were finally ready to play, the sun was shining brightly outside.

We played each song just once and then decided to play outside after all. The harps gave us a good exercise getting carried around!

In the evening was another concert in a different church. Capella Antiqua of Burghausen played Early Music and they were followed by Arianna Savall with her band.

Video of Capella Antiqua

Video of Ariann Savall

At the end of it I was so full of music, I couldn't take in any more!

On Sunday all harp courses gave a concert to show the others what we had learned. Of course I have no photo of myself on stage, but took some of the others.

German Folk music, waking memories of my childhood

Second steps on the harp 

Beginners' Course - they learned so much! 

There were two hours left until I had to catch my train home, so I went for another walk around the lake and up to the castle for one more time. 

It was such a full and wonderful weekend!

The wind of Change at Easter Time

When our daughters were small we spent several weeks before Easter to decorate the house and garden with selfmade little crafts. For about 20 years I collected decorated blown out eggs to put at branches.

This year we are celebrating Easter for the first time without our children. As I was on holiday and very busy afterwards I didn't get out any decorations myself, but enjoy the wonderful decorations in our village.

On Easter Sunday my harp and I are invited to play at the Free Church in town. For the first time I will play this song in public - an Irish song for Easter.

Listen:Video Both sides the Tweed

Exciting springtime!

Although it looks like I am lazy by not writing blogs regulary, the opposite is true - I'm just too busy living life and planing exciting things for the next weeks. 

The first weekend in March sent us "oldies" to northern Germany at the Baltic Sea to deliver capacious Christmas presents to our daughter. We had planned to do this in January, but snow and other happenings kept us from going.

It was freezing cold at the sea, but still wonderful! We had a great time with our daughter and her friends.

The following weekend we had a fantastic mystical & medieval festival in town with plenty of my favorite music and pirates staying with us. I'll tell more about this once life will be slowing down one day.....

On Monday after the festival my husband and I flew to Ireland to visit our younger daughter and friends. I had to learn to drive a car on the left side on the road and did it for more than 1200 km! That way I only managed to do about 2000 photos and will take leisure sorting through them and writing about the wonderful time we had!

Now I'm busy practising on my harp as there are several performances coming up.......

Test of courage - Mutprobe mit Harfe

English
 

Although I practise frequently, I'm still nervous when someone listens to me playing my harp. (It's the same with the camera!) The only way to change this is to play in front of an audience.

The culture club in an old mill in Buchhagen has a very nice offer to do this: the open stage once a months. Everyone can show it's skills there, no matter if with an instrument, a stunt or reciting a poem. One opportunity was last Saturday.

Full of courage I took my harp and husband to Buchhagen. Plenty of technical equipment on the little stage made me wonder, but not worried. - Until the band Monkey Train went on stage and rocked with famous cover songs, for example of Ike & Tina Turner and Cleardence Clearwater Revival. Soft harp music after this? It didn't calm me one bit to see the band Tone Fish arriving as well or that the place was so packed, that some people had to stand or sit on the floor.

Luckily the program turned out to be very mixed. After Monkey Train an undercover church choir went on stage followed by a young man with his hang. It's mystic sound let the audience become quiet and I felt much better.

Tone Fish were kind of my support, playing before me and bolstering me up on stage. This way I could play relaxed and fluently with very few mistakes. There and almost everyone listened to me. That was a nice experience and now I also understand why applause is important.

After me came a man singing A Capella and a melancholic poet, followed by Sofa Session. On request the hang played again and then it was time to relax and get some positive feedback, including the hope of some visitors that I'll bring my harp again.

I'm full of gratitude that the “Kulturmühle Buchhagen” offers this wonderful event!

Deutsch

Obwohl ich sehr fleißig übe, bin ich doch immer noch nervös, wenn ich Zuhörer habe. (Das gilt auch für die Kamera!) Die einzige Möglichkeit das zu ändern, ist vor Publikum zu spielen.


Die Kulturmühle Buchhagen hat für diesen Zweck ein tolles Angebot: die offene Bühne einmal im Monat. Dort darf jeder seine Künste darbieten, ganz egal ob auf einem Instrument, als Kunststück oder auch vorgetragenes Gedicht. Letzten Samstag gab es wieder die Gelegenheit.


Frohen Mutes fuhr ich mit Harfe und Mann nach Buchhagen. Die viele Technik auf der kleinen Bühne im Café erstaunte mich zwar etwas, aber ich dachte mir nichts dabei. - Bis Monkey Train loslegten: eindeutig eine Rockband, mit vorwiegend gecoverten Songs. Harfe nach Ike & Tina Turner und CCR? Da tröstete es mich auch nicht, dass die Band Tone Fish durch die Tür kam und viele Zuhörer mangels Stühlen stehen oder auf dem Boden sitzen mussten.


Zum Glück war das Programm doch richtig gemischt! Nach Monkey Train kam ein Kirchenchor (undercover), gefolgt einem jungen Mann und seiner Hang. Bei den Tönen wurden die Zuschauer ganz still und lauschten. Das machte mir Mut.


Tone Fish waren sozusagen meine Vorband und machten mir noch auf der Bühne Mut – und so spielte ich meine Stücke fließend und mit wenigen Fehlgriffen. Am Anfang wurde noch viel erzählt, doch dann verstummten die Stimmen immer mehr und fast alle hörten zu. Das war ein sehr schönes Erlebnis und ich verstehe jetzt auch, warum Applaus so wichtig ist.


Nach mir kam ein A Capella Vortrag, gefolgt von einem melancholischen Poeten und der Sofa Session. Auf vielfachen Wunsch kam die Hang noch einmal zu Einsatz. Zum Abschluss gab es noch ein paar nette Gespräche und die Hoffnung einiger Zuhörer, dass ich beim nächsten Besuch die Harfe wieder mitbringe.


Ich bin der Kulturmühle Buchhagen sehr dankbar, dass sie diese tolle Möglichkeit anbieten!

Test of courage

Imbolc - once again

Today the celts are celebrating Imbolc to honor Bridgid and the awakening nature. Even in places where the snow is still covering everything, seeds in the ground start to wake up and try to grow. We only have some snow left and I took the chance to walk my favorite round in the park on the hill where green leaves are already bright beside the snow patches.

My favorite spots for harp playing are still covered with snow - but then it's still too cold for the harp outside anyway. The circle of branches was topped by someone with more branches - I can't wait to play there again.

Many birds were already giving a concert and event a squirrle was running from tree to tree up on the branches.

Imbolc is also the time to make plans for the year. Not just the farmers, planning where to grow which grains, but everyone. 

Walking the park I made plans to make 2015 my fittest year since my first pregnancy. I already lost a good number of pounds and now I try to help my body to get rid of the last unnecessary fat by visiting a fitness place to get more muscles.

As I also practice playing my harp twice as much as before, I hope to get good enough to play in front of strangers, maybe even on a small stage.

And finally I look forward to an adventure by going to Ireland again after 18 years and try to drive a car on the left side of the road, something I never dared to do before.

Leaving on a (Jet) Plane....

.....and suddenly our children grow wings and fly off into the world......

We hardly got used to seeing our oldest daughter only 4 times a year and now our youngest has left us all to ourselves. Today we took her to Hannover Airport to get a plane to London/Heathrow and another one on to Cork/Ireland. There she will be staying as an AuPair with a family of 5 for 6 months.

She already called us via Skype and we could see, that she feels comfortable and seems very happy. The cat of the family has taken to her straight away. What else does she need? There's also a local lady's soccer team, so she can keep up playing.

We hope, she'll have a wonderful time in the country I love so well.

Welcome 2015!

The new year started already with 3 birthdays and a busy work schedule. Like every year we had to count all wine bottles at work and all the other little things, like jam or liquors. 

There's also a busy schedule at home, as I have to collect all the Christmas decorations. We started with the real fir christmas tree yesterday. Unlike most years, the needles were falling off just by looking at them.... All other things will come down during the next days. Have a look before they disappear:

 Christmas cards 2014.