Cuban born Alfredo Ortiz is one the leading Paraguayan harpists and has a multi-cultural repertoire which covers the folk, classical and popular music of many countries, in addition to his own compositions. He began playing the Venezuelan folk harp at 15, four years after his family emigrated there, and he eventually used music to support his medical studies. Dr. Ortiz also has a background in music therapy and sensory motor integration, which he draws on in his body/harp workshops. His compositions and publications are used in many schools and by many harp ensembles around the world. In 2008, he was commissioned by the Tenth World Harp Congress to compose a piece, which was then performed by 232 harpists at the Congress, breaking a record in the Guinness Book of World Records. When not performing with symphonies and orchestras, doing concerts or recording, Dr. Ortiz is traveling and doing lectures and master classes.

Performer website: Alfredo Rolando Ortiz

Talented, enthusiastic, kind and committed are only a few of the words that can be used to describe Ray Pool as a performer, teacher, arranger and clinician. With a repertoire as wide-ranging as his travel itinerary, his many years of experience as a teacher/performer make him a popular and welcome presence this year at Somerset. Ray has published many books of arrangements, including Tea at the Waldorf and American Classical Pop—collections of the Big Band, Broadway and popular American tunes he developed during his long-standing gig (nearly two decades!) at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. His focus, more recently, has been on the challenges and rewards of the lever harp. Besides facilitating the Teacher’s Symposium, Ray’s workshops will augment the Symposium, getting to material that we just couldn't squeeze into the one-day teacher agenda.

As one of the pioneers of the American folk harp, Kim Robertson’s style and approach to the instrument is uniquely personal and original. Trained classically on piano and orchestral harp, she brings to both her original compositions and her arrangements of Celtic music a contemporary touch to this centuries’ old instrument. Her skill as a performer has brought her a loyal following and she is an experienced and sensitive teacher as well. She has many CD’s, among them Highland Heart, Dance to your Shadow, The Spiral Gate as well as many 11 volumes of harp arrangements and several instructional videos.

Performer website: Kim Robertson

Poise, professionalism and a wide-ranging familiarity with different harps and repertoire characterize some of what Margaret Sneddon brings to Somerset.   Equally at home on a cruise ship or  founding a harp ensemble.  As a teacher Margaret tailors her instruction to meet the needs of each student although she has a particular focus teaching even the shyest students to play with other musicians in ensemble settings.   Besides seeing her workshop presentation, you can catch up with her in the R Harps booth, whom she is also representing at the festival.

Performer website: Margaret Sneddon

Maureena integrates every aspect of her background in body work with shiatsu, reflexology and tai chi into her approach to harp, which she has been playing for 16 years. She is presenting two workshops at Somerset this year sans harp. As a graduate of Meridian Shiatsu Institute in Wayne, Pennsylvania and a Shiatsu practitioner for over 21 years, she is a registered JinShinDo® practitioner and reflexologist, and is certified in Lymphasizing from the International Academy of Lymphology. These interests have led her to many avenues of healing, including membership in the International Harp Therapy Program. She is founder of Harps of Mercy® serving Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware regions.

Performer website: Harps of Mercy

Picture a lovely woman dressed in white, complete with wings, sitting on a Persian carpet playing a small harp—on a street corner! That would be Sunita, right after completing graduate school during a year spent with her husband, ‘busking’ (street performing) around the world. Versatility and a willingness to explore—different musical genres, different types of harps and different settings in which to play, characterize Sunita’s career. At eight Sunita was already deeply interested in music, playing flute, harp and piano. The next twenty years were spent studying mostly classical music, with such emininent harpists as Lucille Lawrence, Lily Laskin, and Judith Liber. During her time in Jerusalem, she revitalized the harp as an instrument on which to play Jewish music. More recently she has begun providing music in medical settings, such as neo-natal clinics and has participated in studies to measure the effect of music on new born babies. Sunita has played under the baton of conductors such as Phillipe Brunelle and Claudio Abbado but can improvise on her blue electric harp at a rock or folk concert with equal aplomb. With more than twenty recordings to choose from and many books of arrangements from classical, Rock, New Age, Celtic and Jewish music, Sunita has something to offer to every aspiring harper.

Performer website: Sunita

Tokyo-born Tomoko Sugawara began playing Irish harp when she was 12 and graduated from the Tokyo University of Fine Arts with concert harp as her main instrument. For the past 20 years she has specialized in playing the kugo, the ancient angular harp, and played the kugo at major international venues, such as the World Harp Congress (in Prague and Amsterdam), Columbia, Harvard, and Princeton Universities, as well as The British Museum. She has two solo CDs of concert harp and recently released "Along the Silk Road", the first ever recording of the kugo.
Bo Lawergren, is professor of Physics at Hunter College, New York City, and began studying music archaeology 25 years ago. He has 60 scholarly articles in the field, mostly on musical culture between 3000 B.C. and 1500 A.D. in Asia. Recently, he has worked on Medieval Japanese music and was brought to Japan by a Mellon Emeritus Professor Fellowship in Humanities. He will co-present with Tomoko at the Angular harp (kugo) in ancient and modern music workshop.

Performer website: Kugo Harp

It is not exaggerating to say that Seattle-based Harper Tasche lives and breathes harp – from performing to teaching, composing to recording, Harper has deep connection to ancient and folk music and the instrument., and brings to his playing a personal style and passion.  His fascination with the instrument itself has led him to expertise with the cross-strung harp  and also the small harp  -- both reflecting an interest in setting challenges of different kinds.   He is also deeply interested in the physical construction of harps particularly the cross-strung harp, which has led him into collaborations with harp-builders internationally.   His CD’s range from his own compositions, to international folk, to Renaissance, to bedside style harping, while his books offer the student a wide range of melodies and instruction on a variety of harps.

Performer website:Harper Tasche

For many, harps and harp music are deeply entwined with the deeper historical understanding that playing the instruments and music of earlier periods evokes. Ellen Tepper has made a career of combining historical and musical passions and expressing them through harps and harp music, by learning to play a variety of harps from the Irish wire strung to the Italian triple harp. Besides having a distinguished career as a performer in the early music field, Ellen also is a lively lecturer and authority on all things harp between 1300 and 1800.

Performer website:Ellen Tepper

Total immersion might be the best way to describe Christina Tourin’s harp career, but even that does not do justice to the scope of her achievements. Born into a musically gifted family, Christina, fell in love with the harp as a child, studied in the US and abroad in Vienna and played publicly at a young age. In the mid-seventies she discovered the folk harp, and not only organized some of the first folk harp workshops and societies in the US but also plunged into making harps (of which there were too few) . She compiled some of the first folk harp albums as well, such as White Rose and Starlight. In the Nineties, combining her work as a hospital volunteer and her conviction that the sound of the harp had a healing effect, she began to work in the field, founding the International Harp Society among others. Her goal is for every hospital in the US to have a resident harp therapist by 2020.

Performer website: Christina Tourin

From the Curtis Institute to the Fair Hill Scottish Games, Janet Jackson Witman has gracefully moved back and forth between the realms of classical and celtic harp music. After years of enjoying Scottish and Irish Music, Janet made the leap to playing. In the past 10 years Janet has won the U.S. National Scottish Harp Championship, the All Eastern Scottish Harp Championship. In her private studio Janet works with over 30 harp students, many of whom have won scholarships and awards.

She has also been on the faculty of the Ohio Scottish Arts School and “Beginning in the Middle” as well as heading a harp program at the Wilmington Music School. Janet can offer numerous arrangements for harp ensembles and her recordings.include Christmas Crossings and Celtic Journeys with Brandywine Harps, which she arranged and produced. She led her Brandywine Harps to the Edinburgh Harp Festival in 2009 to perform her arrangements and her Somerset harp ensemble's performance at last year's festival was one of the festival hightlights.

Performer website: Brandywine Harps