The American Youth Harp Ensemble
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The American Youth Harp Ensemble continues to dazzle audiences around the world as America’s premiere youth harp ensemble, well known for their musical sophistication, rich sound, emotional power, and imaginative programming of repertoire.
The ensemble has brought world-class music to enthusiastic audiences in the U.S. and abroad through hundreds of performances, recordings, television and media features most recently on CNN, The Edinburgh Evening News, The Scottish Daily Record (Scotland), ABC, PBS and NPR. The Ensemble made its international debut performing in the Maastricht Music Festival (Netherlands) and has had other notable performances in the Edinburgh Music Festival, at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Washington, D.C., the 34th American Harp Society National Conference, The Paris Music Festival (France) and the opening concert for the International Harp Therapy Conference. In April 2001 the Ensemble debuted, in an invited performance, at the Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall, New York City.
The American Youth Harp Ensemble has made headlines as a model of outstanding educational achievement. Winners of the “2003 Theresa Pollak Prize for Excellence in the Arts” from Richmond Magazine as well as the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in Virginia, the Ensemble provides opportunities for students to use the harp as a catalyst for positive change in their lives. Almost all Ensemble graduates receive full or partial college scholarships as a direct result of their ability to play the harp, many choosing music as their major. With both performance and Harp Therapy Outreach components, this is the largest program of its kind in the country; the ensemble has an enrollment of approximately 50 children in elementary, middle, and high school (ranging in age from eight to eighteen).
[edit] Harp Therapy
The Harp Therapy Outreach Program, a national first, was founded in 1995 as an outgrowth of the American Youth Harp Ensemble. Today, it has matured into a nationally recognized program pairing youth mentors with disabled peers through partnerships with community agencies and schools region-wide.
Through the program, students with disabilities build life and social skills and develop friendships and peer groups, opportunities critical for but seldom available to teens with disabilities. Mentor students benefit through experience in a viable application of their music study, giving them direction and strengthening their chances for a college education and a career in music. In addition to peer mentors, a professional harpist/educator, music therapist and occupational therapist staff classes. A weekly evaluation tool is used to measure the efficacy of the harp as a therapeutic tool: progress in musical, psychosocial and physical goals continue to be recorded.
In June of 2003 and December of 2004, the Harp Therapy Outreach Program was featured locally and nationally on the PBS children’s program, ZOOM!.
[edit] The founder
As founder and Artistic & Music Directorof the American Youth Harp Ensemble, Lynnelle Ediger-Kordzaia has seen her dream of a high-caliber harp ensemble grow from infancy to maturity. A nationally recognized educator, it has been under her leadership that the Ensemble has established and enjoyed their international reputation for musical and educational excellence. Ms. Ediger-Kordzaia has been an invited presenter/performer at the Sixth World Harp Conference, the American Harp Society National Conference, the International Folk Harp Conference, The International Harp Therapy Conference and many other conferences. She has been published in many journals including the American Harp Society Educators Forum and the Harp Therapy Journal and her work was the subject of a feature interview in Harp Column magazine. In 2002, she was named a “Top Forty Under Forty” for her work as the Executive Director of the HARPS Foundation. She holds Bachelors degrees in both harp performance and music education, and a Master of Music Education degree from Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. She is currently finishing additional graduate work towards a Master of Art in Arts Administration degree through Goucher College.
