Clinicians

Ms. Baxter's resume as a professional in the field of early harp includes performances of harp literature from the 12th through 18th centuries on a wide variety of historical harps at events such as: the National Harp Society Convention, Houston Grand Opera's productions of Monteverdi's 'L'Orfeo' and 'L'Incoronazione di Poppea' (including subsequent broadcasts on NPR), the Boston Early Music Festival, the Roundtop Early Music Festival, the Texas Early Music Festival, the Amherst Early Music Festival, and the Historical Harp Society Conference/Workshops. In addition to her full-time career in church music as Associate Director of music and organist at Clear Lake Presbyterian Church in HoustonTexas and as a pedal harp performer and teacher, Ms. Baxter serves on the faculty of the Amherst Early Music Festival and the Texas Early Music Festival. She regularly performs with Catacoustic Consort, Ars Lyrica Houston, Canzonetta and the Texas Early Music Project. Her first recording on the Dorian label is entitled "O Lux Beata, Renaissance Harp Music" (DOR 93193.) She also appears as a guest artist with Chatham Baroque on another Dorian CD entitled "Espanoleta" (DOR 90284.) Both recordings went up in the shuttle with astronaut Bill McArthur in Fall of 2000 and will return to orbit for a temporary stay on the space station. Ms. Baxter appeared on the Naxos label with Catacoustic Consort in a program entitled "Passion and Pain" as the grand prize winners of the EMA/Naxos recording competition held in the Spring of 2003.

Jan Jennings

Jan Jennings was introduced to music with five years of piano lessons as a child. She studied harp with Marie Mellman Naugle in Harrisburg, PA for seven years, but did not intend to pursue the harp as a profession. Jennings chose banking, not music, as her career. However, increasing demand for her talents as a harpist allowed her the unique opportunity to blend vocation with avocation, and she “retired” from her management position to become a full time harpist. For almost ten years, she performed nightly at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress in Orlando.  

Jan was recently featured in a segment of “Radical Sabbaticals” on the cable television Fine Living Network. She was also on the cover of “Harp Column” magazine and the subject of an in-depth interview in the May 2002 issue.

Currently a free-lance harpist based in Orlando, she has been the featured artist at prestigious venues in the US and Europe. Jan has played for every conceivable occasion. Her audiences have included mayors, governors, US Presidents, and notables such as Billy Joel, Tony Bennett, Henry Mancini, Robert Goulet, Carl Reiner, and Carol Burnett.

Jan’s Achievements, Awards, and National Recognition include First prize winner, Lyon & Healy International Pop and Jazz Harp Competition (1988); Author, “The Harpist’s Complete Wedding Guidebook” and "Effortless Glissing;"  Music Review Editor and former Assistant Editor for a national industry magazine for harpists; Published arranger of solo arrangements for both pedal and lever harp; Concert artist and faculty member for numerous national conferences; Board of Directors, World Harp Congress; Past Director at Large and Treasurer of the American Harp Society.

Mary Bircher

Mary Bircher has performed as principal harpist of the Omaha Symphony and the Omaha Symphony Chamber Orchestra since 1981.  On numerous occasions she has been featured as soloist with the Omaha Symphony and has been praised for her “truly virtuoso and seemingly effortless performance”.  She has performed with the Baltimore Symphony, the Grand Teton Music Festival, the Des Moines Metro Opera and the Colorado Music Festival. Ms. Bircher is an active freelance performer, and enjoys the opportunity to creatively explore all types of music in a wide variety of venues. She plays often at Omaha Children’s hospital as part of their Art Therapy program, and collaborates with her husband, Omaha Symphony trumpet player Craig Bircher, sharing in the joy of providing music for numerous weddings each year.   Ms. Bircher is an enthusiastic and respected teacher, working with students of all ages and abilities.  She has recorded for American Gramaphone Records and Summit Records and also with flutist Willis Ann Ross and trumpeter Craig Bircher.  In July of 2002, Ms. Bircher was invited to perform as a member of the Salzedo Harp Ensemble at the World Harp Congress in Geneva, Switzerland.  

A native of Richmond, VA, Ms. Bircher is a graduate of the Peabody Institute of Music and a student of Jeanne Chalifoux and Alice Chalifoux. Additionally, she spent six wonderful summers studying at the Salzedo Harp Colony in Camden, Maine. Mary Bircher and her husband, Craig Bircher are the proud parents of two children,  fifteen year old son, Walter, and daughter Josie, who is twelve.
 

Elizabeth richter

Elizabeth Richter has enjoyed a distinguished career as both a performer and teacher. Formerly principal harpist with the Kansas City Philharmonic and the Kansas City Lyric Opera, she has performed as concerto soloist with many orchestras, including the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra in a performance of her edition of Carlos Salzedo’s previously unpublished concerto, The Enchanted Isle.  Conductors and artists with whom she has worked include Sir Colin Davis, Maurice Abravanel, Gerard Schwarz, Maxim Shostakovich, Christof Perick, Dimitri Sitkovetsky, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Pinchas Zukerman, with whom she played a duet encore following a performance with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. 

Her critically acclaimed CD of solo harp music, Looking Glass River, was released on the Beneficence label in 2006 and includes the premiere CD recordings of the Dello Joio Bagatelles and the Bach Chaconne.  Montage, her recording with flutist Sandra Lunte, was released on the Centaur label in the fall of 2007.  Ms. Richter has appeared in recital in the United States and Europe and has been heard on National Public Radio's Performance Today.  She has performed at many regional and national harp conferences and was a featured concerto soloist at the 2004 American Harp Society National Conference.  She is a past winner of an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Indiana Arts Commission. 

Ms. Richter earned Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in harp performance from Boston University, where she was a student of Lucile Lawrence.  Professor of Harp at Ball State University since 1982, in 2001 she received the Ball State University College of Fine Arts Dean's Teaching Award, given "in recognition of her superior teaching and dedication to student development."  Her students have been prize-winners in local, regional and national competitions and have established successful careers in the United States, Europe, and South America.  She has conducted master classes at Tanglewood and the Royal Academy of Music in London, and is a frequent judge at competitions, including the American Harp Society Young Professional Competition.  Ms. Richter formerly served as First Vice-President of the American Harp Society and as director of the Society's Concert Artist Program and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the American Harp Society Foundation.

LINDA BARTON PAUL

Linda Barton Paul, a native Oklahoma, began playing the harp at 14. Studying under several nationally known teachers, Linda completed her Harp Studies at Oklahoma University. She studied with Suzanne Davids in Colorado while studying and teaching at Tulsa University.

Linda has been Principal Harpist with five symphonic orchestras in the Southwest Region of the US. She began studying Jazz Harp technique in the early ‘80's, and has been a Master Teacher for Jazz Harp, recording studio work, and how to run a harp business at festivals and harp camps. Linda currently has 12 CD’s in her recording catalog in several genres. Linda began working in Harp Therapy in 2006, especially for neuropathy and cardiac care.

Linda will be a Research Fellow in Spring of 2008 at the Seminary of the Southwest and the University of Texas in Austin. She will be researching and later recording plainchant melodies which she plans to use in her Harp Therapy sessions. Further info at www.harplinda.com.

Peter Wiley (The Harp Doctor)

Peter Wiley was employed by Lyon & Healy Harps for over twenty years.
Working primarily in the regulation/assembly department he served as an apprentice. After ten years he was honored with the title Master Regulator. While at the factory he also worked in the action/mechanism department and as the Final Production Manager. In 1988 he began the Lyon & Healy Road Service Program which gave him the experience of getting to work with harpists in North America from NYC to LA as well as abroad in Japan, Korea, Australia and Israel. Mr. Wiley has also had the pleasure of being the harp technician for five USA International Harp Competitions and two International Harp Competitions in Israel. During his time as the Chief Harp Technician for Lyon & Healy he continuously worked with most of the major U.S. orchestras and many international orchestras including the Symphony Orchestras of: Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, Pittsburgh, Dallas Israel Philharmonic and the Sydney Symphony. Working with the major harp colleges such as Indiana University, the Julliard School, the Eastman School of Music and the Curtis Institute he began presenting "Harp Care" classes back in 1990. He has also been a guest speaker at three American Harp Society National Conferences as well as a World Harp Congress

Festival Director
Lorelei Kaiser Barton

As a graduate from the Lamont School of Music, University of Denver, Lorelei Barton has been performing and teaching in the Tulsa area for over 26 years. In her 19th year as faculty member at Oral Roberts University she is also adjunct instructor at Tulsa Community College, Tulsa University and principal harpist with Tulsa’s Signature Symphony and the Bartlesville Symphony. She has performed as principal with the Tulsa Philharmonic, Tulsa Opera, Tulsa Ballet, Fort Smith Symphony, Wildwood Opera Festival in Little Rock, Arkansas, Solisti Orchestra for OK Mozart, and Tulsa Performing Arts Center Brown Bag It series. Ms. Barton performs as soloist for many music and professional organizations throughout the state.  Her Chamber Music experience has included the “Duo Arioso,” a flute and harp duo and “Harpeggio” with harpist Diane Dickerson.  Lorelei released her first CD in 1999 entitled, “A Christmas Offering.” 

As a director of harp ensembles her experience began with participating in the University of Denver Harp Ensemble and the Colorado Harp Ensemble from 1978 to 1982 where she also won the Denver Chapter of Mu Phi Epsilon Senior Solo Contest. Since then she has directed several local harp student ensembles whose performances have included the OK Mozart Festival In Bartlesville, TulsaFest Summer Music Camp at Tulsa Community College, Tulsa Mayfest, Inverness Retirement Village, Barnes and Noble, and several other area venues.

A certified teacher with Oklahoma Music Teachers Association, Lorelei is founder and director of the Midwest Harp Academy which services harpists and students in the Midwest and the nationally recognized Midwest Harp Festival. This will be the 9th year for her to direct the Midwest Harp Festival. She is also a member of the local music affiliations TAMTA and Hyechka.  Lorelei’s studies have been with Jane Kauffman Brye of Lancaster, Pa., Suzann Davids, formerly of the Denver Symphony, currently in Elkhart, Indiana, and Alice Chalifoux, former principal harpist with the Cleveland Symphony under the baton of George Szell, former harp instructor at Oberlin and Cleveland Institutes of Music, and the Salzedo Harp Colony in Camden, Maine.