Grant to help amplify harps
Oct. 28—To amplify performances of Odessa High School harpists, Harp Director Francesca Florance has been awarded a $2,000 grant from the Education Foundation titled Empowering Harp Performance.
"We're ordering a set of four microphone set-ups for the harps. They'll be permanently attached into the harps and then all of the sound equipment that we need DI boxes, a mixer, speakers and all the wires, so that we can amplify the harps. We'll be able to do bigger events in larger spaces, or louder more crowded spaces," Florance said.
Harpists may not always use amplification. Florance said it depends on what kind of harpist you are and what kind of events you play.
"If you do regular smaller weddings or things like that, if you're in an enclosed space, usually you're going to be loud enough on your own. But if you're at a huge wedding, or an outdoor wedding, or any kind of like outdoor event, your sound can get lost a lot easier. It can be a loud instrument, but by default, it's not necessarily, so a lot of harpists will have some kind of amplification equipment to make themselves louder," Florance said.
She got funding for four harps and they are still in the process of ordering the equipment.
"With a guitar or violin ... there's one spot that the sound comes out of. But on a harp, it's sort of all around. It's through the soundboard or it bounces off the soundboard, so there's no one good spot to place a microphone. There's a harp company (that) makes harps called Dusty Strings. They make their own harp mic pickup that attaches to four microphones that attach inside of the harp to pick up the full range of the instrument," Florance said.
OHS has seven full-size harps and four will be getting the microphones.
"We've played at the Ellen Noël a lot. While it works for this space that they have, it would still be useful to have the microphones," so that if you're anywhere in the museum or outside in the garden, you can hear the harps anywhere, Florance said.
She added that they have picked up more performance requests in the last two or three years.
"We've been doing all sorts of different things. We've played for the volunteers at MCH ...We were planning to play for a Christmas party for High Sky Children's Ranch. The Ellen Noël we usually do once or twice in a year and we've ended up at the Marriott a number of times for different banquets and luncheons. The Education Foundation had us play at their 100th birthday a couple of years ago. I've gotten more requests, the more that we've gotten ourselves out there," Florance said.
This year at OHS there are seven students in the harp program. Florance has 12 at Bowie Middle School and at Milam Elementary, where they start in third grade, she has about 22 students.
She added that coming in, the program was pretty small.
"I'm working on building up from the bottom, so as as it goes the numbers will get higher," Florance said.
Florance was awarded a Foundation grant last year for coverings for the harp bases. She said she would encourage other teachers and educators to apply for grants.
"The Foundation's very easy to work with. They're very friendly. They're quick to answer any questions that you have and they're super helpful getting things set up, getting things started. They're happy to provide for the community and it lets teachers with programs like mine purchase things that may be outside of our normal budget, but would be great for the program," Florance said.
They are doing a Halloween fine arts showcase with orchestra, harp, guitar, choir, theater, and art Oct. 30. The art showcase starts at 5:30 p.m. and the performances start at 6:30 p.m. at the OHS Performing Arts Center.
