My Harp Story - by John Lozier
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I discovered the harp In 1991, traveling with three agricultural scientists to Pariaguan, Venezuela. We were visiting cattle producers in the vast Orinoco plains. My colleague Bill Bryan, a pasture agronomist at the West Virginia University College of Agriculture, had spent several years in the area. I was chosen for the team because I had good Spanish language skill.
I was also studying for a master’s degree in Agricultural Economics, motivated by environmental concerns (sustainability, organic production, appropriate technology…).
A self-taught musician from early life, I had been old-time fiddling since the mid-1970’s. In Venezuela I carried a harmonica, which helped to “break the ice” when visiting farms.
It was in Venezuela that I discovered widespread use of the harp in traditional folk music. A trio of instruments (harp, cuatro and maracas) performed with or without a singer. A typical setting for live, acoustic performance would be a caney del arpa (harp hut) such as pictured here.
I was captivated. Upon returning to US I obtained a used harp and began teaching myself, with cassettes from Alfredo Rolando Ortiz.
Not long after returning from Venezuela, I connected with John Kovac, a harpist and harp maker in Front Royal, VA. John had discovered the harp while in the Peace Corps in Colombia. In 1994 I established Harping for Harmony Foundation (HHF) as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in West Virginia.
John Kovac turned out to be virtually the only other gringo harpist I’ve ever known who was as devoted to Latin American harp music as I was, His preference was for the Paraguayan style, while I favored the llanero style of Venezuela and Colombia. John and I collaborated for many years to promote and sponsor live performances of traditional Latin American harpists. {I came to call this my Baquiano Project, named after the trail guides herding cattle in the plains of Venezuela and Colombia.}
From John I learned how to construct simple harps with certain Paraguayan features. I built several small harp kits and carried them to El Salvador in 1994. More later.
{John passed away in 2022. He was a very devoted performer, playing several times a week at local restaurants and other venues in the vicinity of Front Royal, VA. From the mid-90’s on, John and I co-sponsored countless performance events with Latin American harpists. He traveled with me to Venezuela in 2006.}
I began a website, harpingforharmony.org, in 1999. It has been revised continuously, and now I’m working to wrap it up into a narrative forward into the 2020’s.
Some early HHF Mission Priorities:
Peace: I’ve promoted peace education and international travel by myself and other volunteer musicians to troubled and war-torn places. Sponsored travels have included El Salvador, Haiti, Russia, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Venezuela, and Colombia.
Childhood: I and others have provided school, after-school and community projects reaching out to children. From 2000 to about 2010 HHF sponsored the Millennium Harpers project, inspiring dozens of other folk harpists to declare and complete community missions across the country.
Livelihood: A concern for everyone, the need for a livelihood includes teachers, nurses, caring professionals, craftsmen, laborers, harpists and other musicians. Above all, our subsistence depends on farming and farmers. All are vocations, callings. In my careers I’ve promoted ecological farming or sustainable agriculture. I and HHF support the right of each person to a livelihood, while also honoring the generous contributions and great service of unpaid volunteers.
Health: Many harpists have developed a practice or specialty in delivering bedside comfort, or therapy. Harp music can bring comfort, respite, healing, and inner peace to people in homes, hospital and hospice settings.
Democracy: Harp music can attract favorable attention to any important message. Nothing is more important than democracy. We aim, through harp music, to remind everyone to recognize our common humanity; to practice good citizenship; to defend human rights; to promote justice, and to preserve the common wealth.
From 1992 to the 2020’s, I traveled widely with my harp, at home and abroad, and also hosted many harpists in Morgantown WV and adjacent states. I will tell the story more or less chronologically, but somewhat freely.
After discovering the harp in rural Venezuela in 1991, I became obsessed with the harp, A used 36-string harp that was my starting instrument. I learned to play by ear using audio and video tutors from Alfredo Rolando Ortiz, the prevailing prominent performer on Latin harp in North America.
I never did learn to read music. It seems so simple to me. The seven-note diatonic scale is simply repeated across several octaves. Tonic, sub-dominant and dominant chords (1, 4 and 5) are easily learned, and other chords on other scale degrees are obvious. The harp blossomed in Latin America from about 1600, when the keyboard and chromatic scale were beginning to appear with baroque music. Meanwhile the 7-note diatonic scale persisted in marginal areas, in Scotland and Ireland.
In 1992 I began building small harps from scratch, guided by my friend John Kovac. By 1994 we had a small harp community in Morgantown and I had built a dozen or more small harps.
In March, 1994 I and a couple of harpist friends first visited the Irish Spring Festival in the little town of Ireland, West Virginia. We continued such visits annually for a dozen or more years. In July that year I traveled to El Salvador as part of a Morgantown community effort to support the reconstruction of the country after their civil war.
July, 1994 - El Salvador Trip
I went to El Salvador in July, 1994, as part of a volunteer group with Building with the Voiceless of El Salvador (BVES). The mission was to support the Salvadoran Peace Accords and to assist rebuilding after the civil war there. Morgantown had rallied to send observers to their election and to dispatch a truckload of relief materials.
It was about then that I came up with the idea of Harping for Harmony, inspired partly from my friend Steve Earp who as a potter who spent a couple of years in Nicaragua, forming strong ties with other potters organized as Potters for Peace. In Morgantown, the Companion Community project sponsored a fiesta to raise money for El Salvador. Steve donated fine hand-made bowls which raised several hundred dollars.
In a similar spirit, our "harp project" is dedicated to peace, and especially to the sustained effort that is needed for implementation after agreement has been reached.
Planning for the El Salvador trip, I learned from John Kovac to make a small, portable harp that would stand up under hard use. With help from various sponsors and Keith McManus at WVU College of Creative Arts, we produced parts fo 12 harps. I carried seven harp kits to El Salvador; four stayed there, and I returned with several decorated in two styles.
The "Mariposa" design is brightly painted with butterflies, in the traditional style of the Maya. The "Concertacion" model depicts a countryside with people, houses, trees and fields. "Concertacion" is a word which connotes harmony, consensus, and a willingness to overcome differences.
In El Salvador, I carried my brightly-painted little 22-string harp almost everywhere. I played on buses and street corners, at churches, and in parks and homes. People called it "arpa del Rey David." In the old testament story, a shepherd boy with his harp cooled the anger of King David, an archetypal story of harping for harmony.I went to El Salvador hoping to find harping preserved in popular culture.
I had hoped to find a persisting harp culture, but was somewhat disappointed. Folks were interested in the harp, but they they were also aware of the lack of teachers and instructional materials. I presented two workshops and various informal introductory lessons on harping, reaching a total of perhaps 40 interested persons.
THE MISSION OF HARPING FOR HARMONY IS
to promote harmony and community, locally and globally, through the sharing of traditional and new music, especially harp music;
to recruit young people to play traditional music, especially harp music;
to celebrate the diversity of traditional music through intercultural sharing, especially between Latin America and North America.
It is not our purpose to compete with finely crafted harps favored by many harping professionals and amateurs. .
THE FUTURE OF ARPA IN CENTRAL AMERICA
The harp is widely popular across Mexico and South America, but not so much in Central America. The Spanish word for harp, ARPA can also be an acronym for a possible movement to re-establish the harp in popular culture (Asociacion para el Reestablecimiento Popular del Arpa). This requires recruitment and training of new harpers among the Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Nicaraguans, as well as North Americans. Fortunately some steps have been taken by Lis Joosten in Honduras and by Patrice Fisher in Guatemala.
In July, 1994 my first Harping for Harmony newsletter appeared, continuing somewhat regularly for several years.
From 1995 to about 2015, folk harpists gathered at the Irish Spring Fesrtival in Ireland, West Virginia. (some details fit here)
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1995, March, Sue Richards at the Irish Spring Festival.
1995-2015, Regular Annual Events at Irish Spring Festival
2001, April, Remembering Portadown, Northern Ireland
2002, April 10, Harps among the Maya or Southern Mexico and Guatemala
2003, October 23-24, Folk Harp Workshops, Coffee House Concert with Castlebay Duo
Russia 1995; Haiti 1997; Venezuela 2005-14; Colombia 2014-present).
1999-2000 - Millennium Harper Awards…
2003-04 - Camp Horseshoe
2005 Venezuela, visiting Adolfo Cardozo, professor of agriculture and singer-songwriter
2007-08; Venezuela (summary 2005-11, joropo music with many links)
2009-10 - trip to Venezuela, harp lessons with Goyo Lopez
2011-12 - trip to Venezuela, guest of Elvis Piñero
2013-14 - trip to Bogota and Arauca, Colombia; Harp study with Hildo Ariel Aguirre Daza and others
2015-16 - host for US tour by harpist Sergio Nicolas Aguirre, son of Hildo Ariel
2017-18 - host to US tours with various harpists
2019-20 - host various harpists in US; travel to Arauca, study with Hildo Ariel and others
(a work in progress 12/31/2022)
The Millennium Harper Project awarded honorific "titles" to many harpists who declared live harp "quests" between 2000 and 2008.
ARPATUR ... ARPATUR, Venezuela 2005, ... Colombia 2014
harp-making ...
school programs...
international projects: El Salvador, Russia, Haiti, Cyprus, Guatemala, Venezuela, Colombia
John's Journal ...
Other projects: Ronald McDonald, Honduras, Academia, Nicolas 1, Pedro, Nicolas 2, Geronimo, Silvio ...
Almost Heaven Harp Circle has been meeting monthly since ... date.
El Molino Harp School
(Note: Venezuela plans have changed, see elsewhere)
The El Molino Harp School Project was conceived in 2005, in a collaboration with CENDI, a Venezuelan nonprofit organization devoted to sustainable agriculture, environmental education, and ecotourism. In March, 2006, young Venezuelans will gather at a farm in the llanero heartland, to receive instruction from harpist Euro Olivero and other traditional musicians. The climax will be attendance at the famous Fiesta at Elorza on March 19. A budget of $5000 will cover purchase of several harps; local travel and living expenses; and compensation for the instructor and other musicians. International "adventure" ecotourists will be invited to participate. This project is part of a much larger program of development under the leadership of Adolfo Cardozo, founder of the musical group La Doctora Gallina.
Other projects approved for 2005 are Tegucigalpa Harp School and Summer Braille Music Institute.
All funding is contingent upon donations.
The purpose is to underwrite and implement a traditional llanero harp workshop project in Elorza, at Fundo El Molino. A group of 5 to 10 young Venezuelan musicians, aged 12 to 24, will be invited to spend 1 to 2 weeks with harpist Euro Olivero and other traditional musicians. Participants will be selected in consultation with local musicians including Adolfo Cardozo, composer of children’s music for environmental education. Foreign visitors will be accepted upon payment of larger fees, to help cover costs. Main expenditures include 1) purchase of several harps; 2) compensation to the harp instructor and other musicians; 2) lodging and meals at El Molino; and 3) local travel arrangements for participation in the Fiesta at Elorza, March 19, 2006.
Carolina Vega, May 3-5, 2019 (Press Release)
Carolina Vega is a graduate of the prestigious music school, Academia Llano y Joropo, in Bogota, Colombia. She has launched a professional career that includes the Celtic and world harp repertoire as well as her native traditions of Colombia and Venezuela.
November 7, 2019, 7 PM, Nicolas Carter Concert - Parkersburg, WV
Thursday, November 7, 2019
7:00 PM 8:00 PM
Parkersburg Arts Center(map)
Parkersburg Arts Center
725 Market Street,
Parkersburg, WV 26101, USA 304-485-3859
info@parkersburgartcenter.orgParaguayan Harpist Nicolas Carter - Concert, Morgantown, WV
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
7:00 PM 8:00 PM
Morgantown Church of the Brethren464 Virginia AvenueMorgantown, WV, 26505United States (map)
November 8, 2019, 7 PM, Nicolas Carter at Beaver Falls, PA
Friday, November 8, 2019
7:00 PM 8:00 PM
Christ Presbyterian Church
828 Blackhawk Rd (Rt. 251)
Beaver Falls, Pa
(map)
