Going back to Paris as a Composer, Performer, and Mentor

Private Paris Retreat … with the MIDI harp

I got to Paris near midnight on Sunday night and made my way to the apartment where the MIDI harp was staying.

Monday morning I met with Jakez and the Jean-Philippe to set the harp up with my computer – a replay of last year – but this time, with the new computer, everything worked. Thus began four days of intensive learning and negotiating with the midi harp.

Fortunately I’ve spent years working with midi, creating all the orchestra scores for my pieces with orchestra, so I had a pretty good idea what to expect from the midi-playback.

Here’s what it looks like when midi first captures harp.

In this second image, there’s a need to clean up what the MIDI harp captured (e.g extra notes and bar spacing adjustments) so that it could be used in the actual file of the sheet music.

Especially with a harp, the midi capture program doesn’t know what’s intentional playing and what’s a kind of standing-resonance.

So while this music isn’t playable, it’s normal for raw midi capture and there’s not much you can do about it except to work to train yourself to play the way the midi-program needs to capture the music (which is pretty much the opposite of being self-expressed) and to get good at the ‘clean up’ process. But I did discover that I could cut down on some of the many extra notes by using a silk scarf to damp the strings slightly (A trick I discovered years ago when beta-testing some of the first electric harps).

The hardest thing for me was that I was also learning the new music software that replaced the one I usually work with, so it was great to be completely alone and in a space where I could focus.

And even with the steep learning curve and the nature of midi cleanup, I was able to get some edits to Gustavo, The Legacy Project team captain, to update the music. You can see that this second sheet music is cleaned up – and then I put it together for Gustavo in Canva so he could update the actual files.

Now I can’t wait to get back to Paris for my next session with the midi harp!

Performing at Espace CAMAC

On Friday I went down to the CAMAC showroom (Espace CAMAC) which had been turned into a concert hall, and met with Cecile Gravot – an amazing harpists who was my tech partner for this show.

Check out this video of Cecile on YouTube to see what a stellar partner I had for this! 

During the soundcheck I asked Jakez to play the harp with me – just for fun, since I know he’s a great harpist in addition to being the president of CAMAC harps … and this impromptu moment became the inspiration for something that happened during the show … but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Unexpected Collab on stage …

It was only when the show was about to start that I remembered that Park Stickney – the world’s best jazz harpist (according to me and thousands of others) — was in in Paris giving a masterclass at the Paris Conservatory – and he was in the audience.

I was right in the middle of “They Way You Are Blues” when it suddenly occurred to me how great it would be to have Park play on stage with me on the same harp, so I called him up and to my surprise and delight – he came up!

Here’s the video of Park and me playing “Harp 4 Hands” on stage

Photos and Videos of me on stage …

Thank you CAMAC Harps for sharing this beautiful photo of me playing on stage!

You can also watch this short video-snap of my concert performance at Espace CAMAC!

The day after my concert, I conducted an in-person harp workshop at the same place – Espace CAMAC and I was thrilled to see harpists – fledgling to advanced level – join me for an opportunity to learn and explore the creativity of jazz improvisation in a supportive environment.

Catching Up with Park Stickney after our shows …

Pictured below are Park Stickney and I sitting at breakfast near Gare du Nord in Paris. Park is unquestionably the world’s greatest living jazz harpist. And I don’t just mean a great player (though he is a REEEEEALLLY great player) — he also has a PhD with a thesis on Chromaticism in the Pedal Harp. That might sound cerebral, but if you ever saw it in action, you’d see just how revolutionary it is.

Park was in Paris giving a masterclass at the Paris Conservatory the same weekend I was performing. We’ve been friends for years (ask me sometime about the first time I met him!) and we got the chance to catch up over breakfast before each heading off by train to different countries.