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| | what's new | | Countdown to B-day on eBay | | | The countdown to March 1st is on as B-day or Bidding-day approaches! Be the first….and hopefully on March 10th, the last to place a bid on four of Wales’s most renowned artists work as their paintings goes under the virtual hammer.
Art and music will join forces on St David’s Day, March 1st as well known artists show their support for the Wales International Harp Festival held in Caernarfon, north Wales between the 4th and 10th of April 2010.
Four of Wales’ most celebrated contemporary artists have donated paintings to raise funds for the festival with their work being sold on auction site eBay from March 1st. Catrin Williams, William Selwyn, Gareth Parry and Eluned Tudor Grant have all donated a piece of their own work to show their support for this internationally renowned festival.
The art auction is one of a number of connections between the Festival and visual art with music and art projects being held in local schools in the run-up to the Festival as well as an on-site art exhibition during the Festival, 4th-10th of April.
Held for the second time in Caernarfon and attracting over 140 competitors from as far and wide as America, Russia, Israel, Japan and China, musicians will compete in a series of five competitions with prizes including a £20,000 Grand Concert Harp donated by the Festival’s main sponsors, Camac Harps of France. The Wales International Harp Festival this year will be held in honour of blind harpist, John Parry of Ruabon to celebrate the 300th anniversary of his birth.
Born near Nefyn, Gwynedd in 1710 John Parry became one of the greatest harpists of the late Baroque period. John Parry’s son, William Parry (1743-1791) trained as a portrait painter under Joshua Reynolds and painted a portrait of his father, which will be displayed during the Festival by kind permission of its owner, Miles Wynn Cato (www.welshart.co.uk). The detailed painting was the inspiration for developing projects linking art and music during the Festival.
Festival Director, Elinor Bennett said; “The Festival organisers wish to thank William Selwyn, Gareth Parry, Catrin Williams and Eluned Tudor Grant for their generosity in donating paintings and hope that, through art, we can reach new audiences for the Harp Festival. Likewise, I hope that music will be a way of opening up a potential new market for the work of these great Welsh painters.”
All four paintings are currently on display in Gallerie Galles, 7 Romilly Crescent in Cardiff where potential buyers can view the work before they go on sale on eBay on a 10 listing from the 1st of March. All four artists are renowned for their intricate work and have chosen their donated pieces carefully.
Elinor Bennett added; “The four paintings are wonderfully evocative and are all inspired by aspects of Welsh landscape, history and culture. I feel extremely indebted to the four artists for their generosity and hope that the sale will fetch an amount that is worthy of their status as four of the finest painters in Wales. I urge all lovers of art and culture to place their bids and support this exciting, novel way of raising funds!”
To bid on the paintings, buyers are urged to search under Wales International Harp Festival on the auction site eBay where all paintings will be listed from March 1st. Money raised from the art sale will be used for Masterclasses and workshops by internationally acclaimed harpists who will work with young competitors during the Wales International Harp Festival in April.
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 | COMPOSER OF THE MONTH
Hilary Tann |  | From her childhood in the coal-mining valleys of South Wales, Hilary Tann developed the love of nature which has inspired all her music, whether written for performance in the United States (Adirondack Light for narrator and orchestra, for the Centennial of Adirondack State Park, 1992) or for her first home in Wales (the celebratory overture, With the heather and small birds, commissioned by the 1994 Cardiff Festival).
A deep interest in the music of Japan led to study of the ancient Japanese vertical bamboo flute (the shakuhachi) from 1985 to 1991. Among the works reflecting this special interest are the chamber work, Of erthe and air (1990), and the large orchestral work From afar, premiered in October 1996 by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kirk Trevor. From afar received its European premiere in 2000 by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and is scheduled for the opening concert of The International Festival of Women in Music Today at the Seoul Arts Center in Korea (KBS Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Apo Hsu, April 2003).
Hilary Tann lives south of the Adirondacks in upstate New York where she chairs the Department of Performing Arts at Union College in Schenectady. She holds degrees in composition from the University of Wales at Cardiff and from Princeton University. From 1982 to 1995, she was active in the International League of Women Composers and served in a number of Executive Committee positions. Numerous organizations have supported her work, including the Welsh Arts Council, the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Meet the Composer/Arts Endowment Commissioning Music USA. A number of her chamber works are available on the Capstone and N/S Consonance labels. Since 1989 her music has been published exclusively by Oxford University Press.
Her connection with Wales continues in various choral commissions - The Moor for the Madog Center for Welsh Studies, Psalm 104 (Praise, my soul) for the North American Welsh Choir, and Wales, Our Land for the Green Mountain College Welsh Heritage Program. The influence of the Welsh landscape is also evident in many chamber works - The Cresset Stone (solo violin), and The Walls of Morlais Castle (oboe, viola, cello). In July 2001, The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Owain Arwel Hughes premiered The Grey Tide and the Green, commissioned for the Last Night of the Welsh Proms.
Recent years have brought a series of concerto commissions - for violin (Here, the Cliffs premiered in October 1997 by the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra with violinist Corine Brouwer Cook), alto saxophone (In the First, Spinning Place premiered in March 2000 by the University of Arizona Symphony Orchestra with Debra Richtmeyer as soloist), and cello (Anecdote, premiered in December 2000 the Newark (DE) Symphony Orchestra with Romanian cellist Ovidiu Marinescu). In March 2001, Hilary Tann guest composer-in-residence with the Louisville Symphony Orchestra in conjunction with a performance of her 1989 concert overture, The Open Field (In memoriam Tienanmen Square). | | click here for more info.. |
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