Göteborgs Konserthus With the harp to eternity

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A musical journey through time in a gold frame rounds off the Harp Festival in Gothenburg’s Concert Hall 2023. In the company of Erik Groenestein-Hendriks and his friends, we are taken on a journey to both France, Japan and Norway. The concert is a tribute to Shan Jones, former Gothenburg Opera harpist, and to Masayo Matsuo, longtime harpist in the Gothenburg Symphony with a career spanning over 40 years! Several of the evening’s musicians have had these prominent harpists as teachers, one of them is world-famous Mai Fukui who travels here especially from Japan for this concert!

As a composer, Paris-born Marcel Grandjany created a rich repertoire for the harp. As a harpist, he made a career in the United States in the 1930s and became head of the harp section at the legendary Juilliard School in New York. We also hear a piece by Marius Flothius, the Dutch composer who was imprisoned for his resistance work during World War II. This particular piece meant a lot to Shan Jones, to whom the concert is dedicated.

In the Japanese solo piece Rokudan, we are thrown into the 1980s and hear samples of the rich influences that marked the composer Toshiro Mayuzumi; he used everything from jazz to Balinese and electronic music.

After the break, the concert ends with electronic effects in Uno Alexander Vesje’s contemporary cry Our Planet, Our Future. The work draws attention to the climate crisis, leaving no one untouched with sub-titles such as “I’m not going to lose that wealth” and “My Name is Greta”. It was commissioned by Helsinki Harp Festival 2020.

Part of the Harp Festival

The concert is part of the Harp Festival which takes place in Gothenburg Concert Hall from 17-19 May – a unique opportunity to get to know this beautiful and mythical instrument. The ticket price for the chamber concerts is SEK 20-40/concert, so take the opportunity to feast!

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