Workshops Carol Thompson has been a harp instructor for over fifteen years and a harp student since the age of thirteen. She specializes in traditional British Isles and Renaissance music played on both the neo-Celtic harp and the Welsh triple harp. Harp Workshops focus on some or all of the following topics: Learning a tune by rote: Methods and significance in the Celtic music tradition. Ornamentation of the tune (Celtic music). Accompaniment for tunes. Accompaniment for session playing (Celtic music). Technique, articulation and hand position. Discussion and practice of harp care and stringing.

Workshops: Celtic Carol offers workshops in celtic and renaissance music. Celtic workshops can focus on: Learning by rote. Players work together to learn a tune note by note, including ornamentation and fingering. If time remains, accompaniments can also be added. The tunes selected can be very easy to very difficult, depending on the level of the participants. If the workshop is an all day affair, beginners can take a morning workshop, and then audit the more advanced afternoon workshop. If we're not all played out by the end of the day, Carol will lead a harper's circle in the evening and give a short concert. Carol also offers a workshop in session and ceili music accompaniment. For this workshop Carol chooses well-known and respected tunes which are mailed out in advance. Players learn the tune, but don't have to play it to speed. When we meet we devise accompaniments for the tunes. The accompaniments can range from the very simple to fancy. The third celtic workshop features slow airs only. What makes a good slow air? Perhaps more than any other workshop, this one also stresses the need for some knowledge of chord construction, otherwise known as music theory. In this workshop, we pick a slow air and learn it, tunes, ornamentation, and accompaniment. All workshops focus on good technique-articulation and hand position. They also feature to some extent, beginning elements of music theory that can be understood by everyone. Finally, if time allows, or if there is special interest, we discuss harp care and stringing, and allow for a question and answer period.

Workshops: Early and Renaissance These workshops have a focus similar to the celtic workshops, using early music tunes that are documented as early music. Carol's primary interest, though, lies in offering a chance to do some ensemble playing. Carol has two and three part early music scores. Some are simple. Some are more complex. All sound great played with multiple harps! What could be more beautiful, if you play the harp and love early music, than a group of harps playing SAT or STB music? (Soprano, alto, tenor, bass.) We spend the afternoon or the day working on pieces that we can then play together in the evening, when Carol leads a harper's circle that ends with the group performance. In these workshops, players of all levels are welcome, but it is important to be able to read music, although for ensemble playing you only need to read one line. Carol can find music for even the newest players to play. Sometimes it is easier for all players if there is a beginners workshop in the morning and a more advanced workshop in the afternoon. The music used for early music workshops has been compiled from various manuscripts-French, German, Italian, Spanish and English--a lot by the famous composer Anon; but there are a number of cantigas (King Alfonso of Spain), as well as a good collection of Dufay, some Landini, some Binchois, and some Roman deFauvel.

Solo Performances As a solo performer Carol offers a program called "A Harper's Journey." Listeners are treated to music from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England, as well as historical anecdotes about the tunes, the composers, and the countries. This show is very popular and usually plays to a full or SRO house.

Spoken Word Carol Thompson and Jack Vickrey offer "1,000 Years of Poetry in English." Ideal for high school or college classrooms, Thompson and Vickrey blend their dramatic performances with literary scholarship, music and discussion of some of the most intriguing writers of English poetry. Jack is Professor Emeritus, English Department, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA. His in-depth, reading and speaking knowledge of Anglo-Saxon and Middle English add color to the performances. Students get a rare opportunity to listen to or discuss the evolution of the English language. Collaborating for ten years, Thompson and Vickrey bring the poetry of Chaucer, Yeats, Tennyson, Whitman, Burns, Thomas, Dickinson, Parker, Donne, and many others, beautifully matched to the sound of the neo-celtic or triple harp. The duo has been featured at the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, West Virginia, The Celtic-Appalachian Concert at the University of Pennsylvania, and at various folk clubs. Their recording, Wild Swans, is available directly from Carol on tape or CD.

Jack Vickrey, now retired, was a professor of English Literature at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., where his academic specialties were Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and History of the English language. He has published about thirty essays on Beowulf and other Old English poems and on Dante's Inferno. He has given many performances at Lehigh University and elsewhere and is taking part in readings for the Stephen Vincent Benet (John Brown's Body) Centennial. For about ten years he and Carol Thompson have given numerous performances of harp and poetry at festivals along the East Coast. Some Programs of Thompson and Vickrey: "A Thousand Years of Poetry in English" This program, almost infinitely variable as to specific items, includes selections from verse, with harp accompaniment, in English from the earliest recorded texts in Old English (i.e., in Anglo-Saxon) on into the twentieth century. Some sample texts: selections from Beowulf, from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, selections from "border ballads, William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, John Donne, Robert Burns, Lord Tennyson, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Butler Yeats, Wallace Stevens, Dylan Thomas. Usually there is some humorous verse included. "Poems of the American Civil War" This program presents, with harp accompaniment, notable poems written during or shortly after the Civil War. For instance: Walt Whitman: "By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame," "Cavalry Crossing a Ford," "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"; Herman Melville: "The Portent," "The March into Virginia," "Shiloh," "Malvern Hill"; several by Emily Dickinson. "A Celtic Program" This program which again can be considerably varied, includes poems, with harp accompaniment, by, for example, Robert Burns, ("To a Louse"), William Butler Yeats ("Song of Wandering Aengus," "Down by the Salley Gardens," "Sailing to Byzantium," and many others), Gerard Manley Hopkins ("Inversnaid," "Binsey Poplars"), Dylan Thomas ("Fern Hill," "Do Not Go Gentle…"). "Of Beren and Luthien" from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion This program is a reading, with harp accompaniment, of Tolkien's story of the heroic quest of the lovers Beren and Luthien to steal a Silmaril (the Silmarils were three great jewels) from the iron crown of Morgoth.