Harpa have been having a fantastic time visiting Western North Carolina!  This year, Harpa is Donna Bowers Bennett, Martha Hill, Therese Honey, Sue Richards and me.  We have been delighted to share in three concerts and a church service at First Presbyterian Hickory.  We have one more concert coming up but right now we’re enjoying a little down time.  We’ve been sharing tunes, laughing, seeing sites and creating.  This week on the blog, we’ll be light on words but photos instead! I, as usual, don’t even remember that I have a camera in my hand.  All these photos are graciously shared by Donna Bennett,Therese Honey, and Martha Hill.  Here we go:

We gathered and immediately started talking as well as planning what we would play!  This, of course, lead to rehearsals and related down time.  Our first concert was at the Ashe County Civic Center to a great audience…and an awesome green room!  We had a blast and an excellent start to our tour.

Fixing to go onstage, we have time for a selfie! Therese is an excellent selfie-starter!

Sound check was quick and smooth with Mike the sound guy. No one ever thanks the sound guy enough.

We stopped for dinner somewhere that had Cow Tails – well known to Marylanders (and former residents) but new to some.  We marveled at the wording of the ingredients – they are highly refined, just like we are!

The next day we were in Black Mountain to play at the Black Mountain Arts Center, sponsored by the Arts Center – another lovely facility with a really warm audience. We spent the day enjoying the town of Black Mountain but we didn’t collect photos.  Everyone was being like me, in the moment, not in the lens!

That evening the weather changed and we had a lovely wind symphony…all night long.  However, the best thing about changeable weather is: rainbows and Donna capturing harps in nature:

A rainbow is always a good sign (at a minimum it means we’re not moving harps in the rain!)

Preparing in First Presbyterian Church in Hickory NC

So, Sunday dawned glorious and we headed to First Presbyterian Church of Hickory where we played the Gathering, Prelude, some of the hymns, and Postlude.  There were a delightful group.  Here we were preparing and warming up while the choir also made ready. After a bit of lunch we headed to the SALT Block Auditorium in Hickory to play a fundraiser in support of and sponsored by the Western Piedmont Symphony.  Another excellent facility and audience.

We really enjoyed playing in Drendel Auditorium

We have one more concert at Morning Star Lutheran Chapel in Matthews, sponsored by Morning Star Lutheran Church Wednesday evening.  If you’re in the area – come out! 

I always have so much fun on our Harpa trips – playing and having shared time, missing our Harpaniks that haven’t been able to come this time…and planning our next outing!  Where will go next?  Remains to be seen.  There is a video of us playing in Hickory and as soon as I have a link, I’ll share it!