Hadley Lyre Ensemble celebrates LANA's Anniversary

In Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Lyre Association of North America

 Hadley Lyre Ensemble

The Hadley Lyre Ensemble celebrates the 30th Anniversary of the Lyre Association of North America with two presentations of Music in Tone & Word: An Afternoon of Lyre & Poetry with the Hadley Lyre Ensemble. This event is offered on Saturday, October 12th at the Northampton Friends Meeting House in Northampton, MA and on Saturday, October 19th at Solaris Camphill Hudson in Hudson, NY. “Many people have never heard the unique and therapeutic tones of the modern lyre,” states the Ensemble’s Director Channa Seidenberg, “and we wish to change that.” The program includes works by J.S. Bach, Arvo Pärt, Colin Tanser, Gerhard Maasz, Max Gross, Jan Nilsson, Turlough O’Carolan, Channa A. Seidenberg, and Julia Elliott. Selected poetry from ancient to modern times on the theme of music will also be presented. These events are free and open to the public, with refreshments served afterwards. 

The Hadley Lyre Ensemble, founded in 2009 by Director Channa A. Seidenberg, is made up of eight lyrists from the Pioneer Valley and Boston, Massachusetts and the Hudson Valley, New York. The group plays a wide range of music from baroque to modern as well as improvisational pieces. “In our practice, we work consciously with tone production, seeking to free the tone from the instrument of its making so that it builds an experience of pure tone in the room,” Seidenberg explains, “We recognize the therapeutic and uplifting benefits of this listening work and celebrate each opportunity to share this work with others.” The Ensemble regularly provides music for special events, including the annual Winter Garden at the Hartsbrook School in Hadley, MA, and Walking the Dog Theater's annual Christmas Eve performance of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" in Hudson, NY. For more information about the Lyre Association of North America, visit www.lyreamerica.net. For more information about this event, contact The Hadley Lyre Ensemble at (518) 672-4389 or channaseidenberg@gmail.com.

Louise Drosse, for the Hadley Lyre Ensemble

The Lyre and the Human Voice

Summer 2013 Lyre Conference

The Lyre Association of North America (LANA) held its Summer Conference, “The Lyre and the Human Voice,” from Saturday, July 20, through Wednesday, July 24, in Chapel Hill, NC.  Guest presenter was Thomas Adam, Werbeck singer and Director of Werbeck Therapeutic Singing trainings in this country, Germany, and Brazil.

The conference was held at the Emerson Waldorf School, a wonderful venue for playing, singing, catching up with colleagues, and meeting new friends.

How do we play the lyre in a singing manner?

The modern lyre came into being out of a search for a music instrument to accompany the new art of tone eurythmy. Tone eurythmy seeks to make musical tone visible through movement. Two young artists, Lothar Gärtner and Edmund Pracht, sculptor and musician respectively, were inspired to create an instrument that could adequately support the etheric movement in this very young art. Thus the modern lyre was born.

As of 1907, Rudolf Steiner gave important indications of renewal for all the arts. In 1912, coinciding with the initial impulse of the art of eurythmy, a collaborative effort between Rudolf Steiner and Valborg Werbeck-Svardstrom began.

In the schooling for Uncovering the Voice, Mrs. Werbeck was searching for apath to develop the voice as a phenomenon of the reality of etheric movement. For the forces of singing to become free, education and training are needed. This is an essential task of voice development, especially in our time!

During our conference ”The Lyre and the Human Voice”, we will address the initial steps in the school for Uncovering the Voice – breath, sound development, and articulation. These same processes will then be applied to the playing of the lyre.

At the center of this activity lives the development of inner listening. The special nature of the lyre stimulates the movement of inner listening as no other musical instrument can.