Dania Lane, our wonderful harpist with the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra, has been chosen to perform at the White House this Christmas, 2020! She is slated to perform December 20th and 23rd for the annual White House Christmas Open House and the LSO would like to extend our congratulations. This is quite an honor and will be a memorable experience. We look forward to hearing all about this spectacular Christmas event from Dania after the holidays and we hope to share that conversation with our entire LSO family in a future podcast. Best wishes, Dania, for a safe journey to this unforgettable event. What a wonderful award of distinction! You can read more about Christmas at the White House HERE.
Today’s modern pedal harp is quite technologically advanced. It is an acoustic instrument with a sound board and tuning pegs similar to a piano. Reading harp music is also similar to the piano with the right hand playing the treble and the left hand the bass. Interestingly, the pinky finger is not used when playing the harp. The pedals are also completely different. On a harp, there are a whopping seven pedals and each pedal has three positions! There is one pedal for each note in the scale. The D pedal, for example, changes all the D strings to be either sharp, flat, or natural – thus the three positions. This allows the instrument to play in different key signatures. The harp also has a range of about six octaves on 47 strings. You may have noticed that some strings are colored differently. The C strings are red and the F strings are black.
These fun facts barely touch the surface of the intricacies of the harp. If you would like to know a little more about this heavenly instrument you can start here at Britannica.com.
Learn more about the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra and its 2020-2021 season offerings Here.
