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Sylvia Woods Harp Center
June 2026 Newsletter
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Here is a fun update. In last month's May 2026 e-newsletter, my blind student Jessica Raichle wrote a wonderful article about playing the harp while blind.
I have made an entire page on my website about Jessica in the Fun Stuff category. It includes her article and a link to the hour-long interview she did last week on the Down East Radio Reading Service, a radio show for people who are blind. I suggest you check out Jessica's new page, listen to her interview, and hear her play her harp! You can find her page at www.harpcenter.com/Jessica.
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The 250th anniversary of the United States of America will be in a few weeks, on July 4th. That is the reason why two of my patriotic arrangements are part of this month's sale.
The first day of July is also an important holiday, at least for me. I've mentioned my friend Patti numerous times in these newsletters because she has been a huge part of my life for many years. We became friends as Counselors-in-Training at Girl Scout camp the summer after 10th grade. A few years later, we were roommates in college, and we have stayed close ever since. She flies from California to visit me in Hawaii every year or two, and we always have a great time.
Sometime in the 1980s, we decided we needed to celebrate our "Friendaversary." My mother kept calendars of everything we did for years and years, so we asked her when the first day of Girl Scout camp in 1966 was. She looked at the appropriate calendar and said it was July 1st. So that's the day we've been celebrating our Friendaversary ever since. This year will be our 60th Friendaversary. Amazing!
This top photo of us at our college graduation was taken about six weeks before our 5th Friendaversary, even though we weren't celebrating it yet. And the second photo was taken about three years ago when Patti was here on Kauai, a few months before our 57th.
One of the reasons we always get along so well is that we are both extremely silly. In some future newsletter, I'll tell you about the numerous other fun holidays we've created over the years.
If you have longtime friends, I highly recommend that you start celebrating your Friendaversaries!
| An Amazing Find for Make Music Day | |
I also often mention my favorite sister, Sheryl, in my newsletters. (She is my ONLY sister, but she is still my FAVORITE!) Sheryl lives in France and sent me this photo of part of a musical group that performed in Douarnenez in Brittany for Make Music Day on June 21st. The group included three harps, seven accordions, a clarinet, and a saxophone.
If you are not familiar with Make Music Day, you can read about it in my May 2025 newsletter.
A few days ago, Sheryl sent me the following fascinating information.
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The National Library of France has discovered and identified a previously unpublished manuscript by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart written during his stay in Paris in 1778. The document is a 44-page notebook containing composition lessons given to Marie-Louise-Philippine de Bonnières de Guînes (1759–1795), an accomplished harpist and daughter of the Duke of Guînes, who commissioned the concerto for flute and harp. The notebook contains both harmony exercises and seven pieces for flute and harp. Discovered in February 2026 in the library’s Music Department, the collection is a valuable source for understanding how Mozart conceived and taught composition.
Six of the pieces for flute and harp are complete and will enrich the repertoire for this combination. They were performed in public for the very first time at the National Library on June 21st by harpist Nicolas Tulliez and flutist Mathilde Calderini as part of the annual Make Music Day festivities. The concert was broadcast on national Radio France on the 22nd. You can listen to the concert here: https://www.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/podcasts/relax/premiere-mondiale-ecoutez-un-inedit-de-mozart-decouvert-par-la-bnf-5404035. The podcast begins with a 2-minute introduction in French, followed by the 14-minute concert.
The concert will only remain online for one month, so don’t wait.
At present, there is no information on whether the music will be published. We will keep you posted in future newsletters.
Sheryl contacted the National Library and received this response:
"The notebook is expected to be displayed at the BnF museum (Museum of the Bibliothèque nationale de France) at a date yet to be determined. It will be available for consultation in the reading room in either digital or original form, depending on the researcher's needs."
Book photo copyrighted by BnF.fr. Used by permission.
| | Our Featured Arranger: Carol Wood | | |
Carol Wood is our featured arranger this month. Here's what she has to say about herself and her music.
I grew up in El Dorado, Arkansas, a small town that got its name from the oil boom that started it. My mom was a professional organist, and she made sure that my brother and I both had piano lessons as we grew up. I am pretty sure that my practicing got on her nerves.
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Although I always loved the sound of the harp (who doesn't, honestly?), I didn't begin learning to play it until I was thirty years old. By then, I was a professor of Medieval Literature in Lake Charles, Louisiana, just finishing up my doctoral dissertation on the Welsh Cynddylan cycle of poems. One weekend, my husband and I went to a concert that featured Ravel's Introduction and Allegro, and I realized there was a harp teacher on the faculty at McNeese, where I taught. The following Monday, I went to Barbara Belew's harp studio and asked if she ever accepted adult beginners. Fortunately, her answer was "Yes!"
At about the same time, I encountered the heart-breakingly beautiful tune Women of Ireland, performed by Derek Bell on Irish harp in the movie Barry Lyndon, and I fell in love with Celtic music and the lever harp. That was an exciting time for the lever harp, as more and more harp makers were making better and better versions of the lever harp, and there was a real explosion of great harps and harpists and many, many new harp students. Those were the days of paper catalogs arriving by mail from Sylvia Woods, Melody's Traditional Music, Lyon and Healy, Lark in the Morning, and others.
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Miss Belew, my teacher, encouraged Celtic music and lever harp technique as well as pedal harp and classical technique. At some point, I saw an image of Jay Witcher's Sirr harp in a catalog, and that became my very first harp. (Shown here in this photo in the wisteria bushes.)
Then, on a family vacation in Camden, Maine, we ran across the music shop called Song of the Sea, a treasure house of printed harp music and instruments. When I saw a beautiful Dusty Strings 36 on display, my harp life suddenly became much more expensive!
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Miss Belew also encouraged me to arrange my own pieces and included some basic theory in our lessons. When another student, primarily a bassoonist, formed a duo with me, I made many harp and bassoon arrangements. My favorite was probably Ticket to Ride, with the pedal harp using a pedal slide to play the original bass hook.
And then one day I started composing. I’m sure many other people know the strange power that composing has over you once you start. There is something terrifying and yet also deeply and mysteriously satisfying in the endeavor -- something irresistible, despite your knowledge that the world is already very full of wonderful composers and stupendous masterpieces. Luckily for me, this happened at just the time when the lever harp world was exploding, and Melody’s Traditional Music agreed to publish and sell my work.
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As a bit of further luck, I was able to combine my harp interests with my “day job” as a medievalist when Mel Bay published The Chaucer Songbook. For this, I collected every piece of music that I could find that Chaucer mentioned in his works, or pieces related to them, up through the early 19th century. For example, Angelus ad Virginem is mentioned in The Miller's Tale, and the 17th-century ballad "The Marriage of Sir Gawain" is a distant variant of the story told by the Wife of Bath. I arranged them as works for solo harp or for harp and voice, and included a long introductory essay about what we know about the harp and harpers in England from the early 13th century up to 1400. Actually, that turned out to be quite a bit, as there are many fascinating facts about the court harpers in the household account books of the royal courts.
| Upon retirement, we moved from Louisiana to Vermont, where I really enjoyed the musical life in our little village and the extra time I had to compose. I wrote some works for our Main Street Arts Children’s Choir with lever harp accompaniment, including settings of poems about the moon by Vachel Lindsay and a setting of E. E. Cummings’ “little tree.” A big event in the community was The Five Seasons Project, involving visual artists, an adult choir, and an ensemble made up of violin, cello, flute, and harp from the Vermont Symphony. For this project, I wrote The Saxtons River Suite, using themes from the earlier lever harp version and settings of works about the seasons (including our “mud season”) by Vermont poets. The above photo is from a performance of The Saxtons River Suite, with Counterpoint, Vermont’s elite professional chorus, and members of the VSO. | |
These days, I compose for a much wider range of instruments and ensembles, though I still write books for full-size lever harp. I do only a little performing, but I still feel that a day when I don’t sit down to practice the harp is a day that is out of balance. Being a harpist has defined me for almost half a century.
-- Carol Wood
All of Carol's PDFs are included in "This Month's Sale" below.
| | New Products at Harpcenter.com | | |
This month's sale features my arrangements of three American songs, and sixteen PDFs by Carol Wood, this month's Featured Arranger. Eight of Carol's arrangements are for solo lever or pedal harp. "Saint Melangell" is specifically for pedal harp. The remaining arrangements are for harp and voice or other instruments, as indicated in the titles.
To get the 15% discount, enter the code word America in the "Enter Promo Code" box on your shopping cart page and click "Enter Code" by July 7, 2026. See the "How to get the 15% discount" section at the bottom of this newsletter for more information.
The sale this month doesn't end on the 30th: it is good for an extra week, through the 7th!
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How to get the 15% discount
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15% off select sale items when you use the code word America
Our newsletter promo codes are redeemable online and are only valid for the products listed above in the monthly sale section. They are not valid for phone or email orders. This month's code word is America.
Here's how to get your newsletter discount at harpcenter.com:
#1. Put the items you want to purchase in your cart.
#2. On the page where you view the items in your cart, type this month's code word America in the "Enter Promo Code" box and click "Apply."
The actual price of the featured sale products on this page will then automatically change to reflect the discount. For example,
Unit Price: $9.95 (the original price)
Total Price: $8.46 (the discounted price)
You'll also see a note below the Promo Code box that shows the name of the promo code you entered and the percentage discount.
REMEMBER: You must enter this month's code word America in the Promo Code box and click "Apply" on your shopping cart page by July 7, 2026, to get the discount!
If you forget or have trouble adding it to your order, email Sylvia immediately.
This offer expires at the end of the day on 7/7/26.
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Sylvia Woods Harp Center
Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii
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