Eliza Weed and Dr. David Day
Harold B. Lee Library International Harp Archives
I was given an ORCA Grant to research the Russian Harp Repertoire. The grant allowed me to travel to Switzerland for a two-week intensive of workshops, lectures, performances and master classes with Russian harp masters Irina Zingg and Milda Agazarian. While I was at this intensive I not only learned an extraordinary amount about the subject of Russian Harp Repertoire, but also was able to study Russian technique and the pedagogy thereof. My time in Switzerland has already paid dividends in my prowess as a musician and I am confident and excited to share what I have learned with my future students and the harp community in the United States.
Part of the reason I wanted to do this project in the first place was that I felt there was a lack of appreciation for Russian harp music in the United States. As I was the only American in attendance at the intensive, I found this to absolutely be true. For example, one of the pieces I had the great fortune to study with Professor Agazarian was Walter-Khune’s Fantaisie sur un theme de l’opera Eugene Onegin. I first began studying this piece at BYU, and before I played it in studio class, none of the other harpists in the studio could recall having even heard it, much less played it. Contrast that with what I found at the intensive in Switzerland. Every single attendee was playing or had played the Onegin Fantaisie. In fact, since the piece was played by everyone, Professor Agazarian devoted an entire afternoon to outlining the history of the piece, comparing it with the original Tchaikovsky Opera, and explaining the adjustments she made in her own edition of the work. It goes without saying that the recordings and notes I took from that afternoon I will treasure and use for the rest of my career.
In my time as a Harp Performance major at BYU, I have also come in contact with several aspects of Russian technique. This was another area in which I believed the United States harp community to be lacking in comparison with the rest of the harp world, and again, I was correct. Whereas I began learning the basics of Russian technique (this includes certain methods for playing scales and arpeggios, and an emphasis on relaxing the fingers immediately after playing, among other things), many of the other harpists I met in Switzerland had been trained in or at least aware of Russian technique since they had begun playing the instrument. I believe Russian harp technique to be far superior to other methods, so naturally I would jump at the chance to go back in my own training and learn to play the harp as taught by the Russians from the start. While unfortunately that is not possible, during my time in Switzerland I learned and took meticulous notes on how to improve my technique as well as how to teach it to a beginning harpist. This means that, while I didn’t have the opportunity to learn Russian technique early in my training, I will be able to offer that opportunity to my students and thereby begin to increase the awareness of Russian technique and its many merits to the American harp community.
The highlight of my time in Switzerland was studying closely with Professor Agazarian. She is extremely knowledgeable about the harp, of course, but many musicians can have vast knowledge without having a good sense of how to share it. Professor Agazarian, however, is uniquely excellent in this area as well. Even while teaching me lessons in English, a language so very different from her native Russian, she was able to explain her critiques of my playing in an extraordinarily clear, concise, and organized way. I was lucky enough to have 5 private lessons with Professor Agazarian (the most of all the other attendees by far), thanks to my ORCA Grant. The recordings I have of those lessons are among my most prized possessions. She didn’t just teach me how to play my current pieces well in the lessons, but rather, she taught me how to begin to think about playing the harp in a different way, and how to truly listen to the sound I produce as a musician. I was also able to sit in on the lessons of some of the other attendees, and what I learned even just from watching is invaluable as well.
Thanks to my ORCA Grant, I was able to experience the two of most formative weeks of my entire 17 years as a harpist. The experience of traveling to a setting as beautiful, peaceful, and inspiring as the Swiss countryside to learn all that I did has had more of an impact on my harp career than perhaps my whole life up until college. I am so grateful for the opportunity to have studied with Professor Agazarian, especially as intensely as I was able to because of my grant. I so look forward to sharing what I learned from her (and am still learning as I continue to play through the recordings of our lessons time and time again) with my students and peers. As a result of this grant, I hope and believe that the American harp community will slowly begin to have a greater awareness of and appreciation for Russian repertoire and technique.
i Left: Professor Agazarian and I in a private lesson. Playing ‘Sicilienne Variee’ by Damase.
Right: Professor Agazarian, myself, and Irina Zingg after the final concert gala. I played ‘Variations on a theme of Paganini’ by Mcheldov.