The New Zealand Harp Society has been running since the mid 1980s, with the first journal being published in 1987. To date we publish three journals a year (full of profiles, information and events) and have an informative website and (at times, active) online harp forum.

We are a small harp society of 140 members spread across New Zealand. The majority of our members are lever harp players with increasing numbers of pedal harpists in each of the major centres. We are able to direct you to a harp teacher or teachers in Bluff, Christchurch, Dunedin, Wellington, Hamilton and Auckland, and harp makers in Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland, Whangarei and Kerikeri.

For those of you in the Wellington area, I have an exciting concert coming up with the SMP Ensemble. I will be playing a number of unusual works for harp with various small ensembles - mostly, though not exclusively, 20th century works. Highlights will include:

• Ross Harris's Three Rilke Songs, for soprano, harp and clarinet, which I gave the first public performance of in 2004. I'm looking forward to returning to this haunting work.
• Carl Micháns' Music for Harp and Clarinet. This is new to me, but a very interesting piece.
• Dreambird, for solo harp, which Tabea Squire wrote for me in 2010. I love this piece and feel very privileged to have it every time I perform it. And my audiences usually love it too.
• and last but not least, Debussy's famous and well-loved Danses Sacrée et Profane, in the version for harp and string quartet.

I'm looking forward to playing, and I hope to see some of you there! If you come and bring your friends, I might even get paid. ;)

The concert is on Saturday May 12th at 7:30pm, in the Adam Concert Room at VUW. Tickets are $10 at the door ($5 for students).

Happy harping to all!

- Ingrid.

Be sure to check the event calendar for current and upcoming performances.  There are lots of performances happening over the next few months.   Anna and Shane are touring with pipes and harp, Ingrid is back and performing in Wellington, Anne-Gaelle is performing in Palmertson North, Sherry has a performance in Invercargill, Helen and Davey will be touring as well!  While not every place is being visited, there are performances happening all over New Zealand.

 Know of a performance that isn't on the calendar?  Any active member of the harp society can add events to the event calendar.  If you want to know how send myself or Anne-Gaelle an e-mail and we can send instructions, it's not hard.