Dear Friends,
Happy New Year. It's been a very full 2011 with lots of excitement and interesting work. I was a delegate from Israel at the World Harp Congress in Vancouver in July, and helped organize the first Israeli Harp Festival in October. Jazz harpist Park Stckney was the festival's guest of honor. More details below.

Before the Festival my husband and I organized a workshop for Park at a music center in the remote Palestinian village of Salem, near Nablus. It was a truly transformative experience to see the enthusiasm and talent among the village children. During the visit we met Yasmin and her family.

Yasmin is blind. She is also an educated and sophisticated young woman, frustrated by the lack of opportunity in a conservative society. She was completely enamoured by the harp and we decided on the spot to help her develop musically. Once we find her a harp, I will visit the village twice a month to teach her. More details below.

                                                          Cheers,

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Latest CD

Sea & Sky
Sunita - solo harp

Traditional Irish and Scottish melodies to calm the body and uplift the spirit.

order here ______________________

TZALOOL
Have you been at the river?
Sunita: Celtic harp
Gal Shahar: fiddle
Guest-Abe Doron: percussion

Available from:
Silver Lining Records
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Latest Music Book

Sunita's books are available from Melody Music and Sylvia Woods

Summer 2012 Tour

Sunita will be in Canada and the USA for most of the summer, performing and teaching at festivals, music camps and other venues, including the Summerset Folk Harp Festival.

If you are interested in bringing Sunita to your community, please send her an email.

If Sunta is already in your area, a house concert is a fun way t o introduce her music to your family and friends.

If you are a member of a church, synagogue or other organization with access to a performence venue then a larger concert could be organized.

If you are part of a harp community in your area then a workshop could be organized.

Contact Sunita for details.

Israel Harp Festival

The first Israeli Harp Festival and competition was held in Jaffa from the 16th to 19th October 2011.

Over 100 Israeli harpists from different backgrounds and experience came together for three days. Park Stickney, one of the world's finest harpists was the guest of honor. His musicianship, compositions, arrangements, improvisations, teaching and general enthusiasm were an inspiration to everyone.

Only two hours after flying into Israel, the day before the festival began, Park gave a sunrise concert on top of Masada by the Dead Sea.

The Festival included numerous workshops led by harpists, harp builders, a harp technician and a specialist in the Alexander Method. Harp players had a chance to sample jazz, singing with the harp, creating background to story-telling, basic repair, building a concert program and learning about the work of therapeutic harpists in Israel.

The concerts at the Festival celebrated the wide variety of harps and styles of music performed here in Israel. This included: jazz, African, Latin American, Irish, Klezmer, Mediterranean, Jewish, contemporary music and of course, classical.

Help Yasmin
find a Harp
Donate Here

Yasmin Gebara is blind from birth and lives in the village of Salem, just to the east of Nablus in the middle of the West Bank. She graduated college in 2010 with a major in English literature, and writes poetry in English which you can read at this link.

Yamin's father was killed in 2004 and her mother Muna has been raising six children. Despite all odds she has raised a wonderful family.

Through the cooperation of the Villages Group, an Israeli/Palestinian peace group, Sunita and harpist Park Stickney visited the music program in Salem where Park conducted a children's workshop and jammed with one of the teachers who played oud.

Yasmin just loved the harp and explored the instrument by touch with Sunita's help. Sunita made a commitment to help raise funds and buy her a harp. In addition Sunita pledges to visit Salem twice a month and provide lessons. The harp selected is the new 34-string Celtic harp made by Israeli harp-maker Peter, at Woodsong Instruments in the Galilee.

The harp costs 10,800 shekels, approximately $2,850. Please donate what you can to help provide Yasmin with a harp.

Donations will contribute to the cost of the harp and help defray the teaching expenses.

Donate Here