A chairde,
Dear friends,
Thank you so much to those of you who have supported us in some way in 2020. We couldn’t be more grateful for your donation of time or money, and for keeping up your annual membership subscriptions; without your interest and help, our activities would not be possible.
Despite such an unprecedented year, we managed to
- deliver a ground-breaking HHSI scientific project at The National Museum of Ireland that was featured on RTE TV news;
- publish an online HHSI library catalogue in the most advanced open-source Integrated Library System in use today by hundreds of libraries worldwide; and
- present HHSI 2020 Discovery Day lectures and concerts.
- We received an eagerly awaited, newly built medieval harp we had commissioned, funded by Music Network.
- We salvaged some real-time community in our online summer-festival alternative with youtube premieres over five days.
- We produced a new information leaflet, and added 15 videos to our youtube channel.
- We celebrated National Harp Day, and
- supported individual artists on a one-to-one basis, throughout the year, fielding queries, and assisting musicians, academics, and researchers from around the world.
Our forthcoming 2021 projects include:
- the release in the New Year of a new, short video about the early Irish harp, and our work to rediscover its traditions.
- the development of a strategic 3- to 5-year growth plan.
- 25–29 JULY: a fully online 2021 summer festival with 34 live events and 7 pre-recorded lectures and concerts. Hold the dates; if you ever wanted to attend but couldn’t get to Kilkenny then this is your year!
- a new festival website, which we will unveil in the spring.
- our new UK-based Harp Woods project, which has successfully sourced, sawn, and palleted some all-too-scarce large willow trees for early-Irish-harp builders (get in touch if you are looking for some).
- Five early-Irish-harp Discovery Days around Ireland, COVID-willing.
All this is possible only because of your support and that of our funders, most notably, An Chomhairle Ealaíon (The Arts Council). Míle buíochas – thank you so much.
We wish to send our warmest regards to the wider harping community; don’t forget that we are part of a global family and you are not alone during this pandemic. Please reach out to your friends online and know that we hope to see you soon. Continue to share your harping photos and videos, if you are a player; don’t be shy and keep the conversation going on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
We wish you and your loved ones a safe and restful Christmas, Yule, Hanukkah, whatever you’re having yourself, and all the very best for 2021 from all of us at The HHSI.
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