Karen Loomis: Finding the Secrets and Stories of Ancient Harps
Growing up Karen Loomis had two streams of what she wanted to do with her life. One was science and the other was music. She started college as a double major in physics and music, but dropped the second major in music. While she was in graduate school for Astronomy, a friend loaned her the album, “Down to the Moon” by the Swiss harpist, Andreas Vollenweider. The album opened a whole new world for Karen.
The only harp music that she had been exposed to at that point was pedal harp. She felt that his harp and music was different and very interesting. She started researching different harp music. She wandered into a record store and found, “Journée à la Maison” by Alan Stivell.
She took the record home and listened to it and her life changed. It was unlike anything that she had ever heard before and it was to her the most amazing music that she had come across. “this is an entirely new world”.
Years later when a friend loaned her lap harp she discovered the Historical Harp Society of Ireland, run by Siobhán Armstrong. While she was at the HHSI’s annual summer school she kept hearing people saying, “we wish we knew more about the surviving historical instruments.” and well...the rest is history.
Karen came to the field of Organology, the study of musical instruments, from her career as a scientist and became fascinated by finding out the secrets of how instruments were made and their history and how they were put together and how they were used.
Special thanks to Siobhán Armstrong for allowing me to include music from her newest release, “MUSIC , IRELAND and the SIXTEENTH CENTURY”, which The Irish Times gave five stars and said it is not to be missed.
Enjoy my conversation with Karen Loomis and the amazing stories she and others have discovered about some of the surviving ancient harps of Ireland and Scotland.
Make sure to catch Karen and Siobhán at The Somerset Folk Harp Festival and Scoil na gCláirseach this summer.
“We’ve almost come full circle to the point where we can now build new harps modeled after those very old original instruments and reconstruct the techniques and relearn how to play those instruments and re-explore anew that old sound world from medieval to early modern Ireland and I think that’s a wonderful experience.”
“Each one of these instruments has a story to tell and all of the stories are interesting. There’s always something cool to discover…”
“The whole process of discovery delights me.”
“to be able to help musicians who play these instruments and to be able to help the harp makers who build them, it makes it that much better.”
“It’s like a treasure hunt to me…there’s always something to discover.”
LINKS
Karen Loomis: www.karenloomis.com/news
Historical Harp Society of Ireland: irishharp.org/events/
Siobhean Armstrong http://www.siobhanarmstrong.com/discography
HHSI at The Somerset Folk Harp Festival: somersetharpfest.com/historical-harp-society-ireland-sunday.shtml
Lewandowski Harps: www.lynnelewandowski.com/
Princeton Early keyboard center: www.pekc.org
The Hollybrook Project: irishharp.org/hollybrook/
Andreas Vollenweider: www.vollenweider.com
Irish Times Review of Siobhán Armstrong’s album:
www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/music-ireland-and-the-sixteenth-century-the-irish-consort-enchanting-harp-1.4580004Simon Chadwick: simonchadwick.net/irish-harp
Alan Stivell: www.npr.org/artists/16228573/alan-stivell