Past Instructor Bios
meet some of the people who make The Island Mountain Arts Harp + Cello School So Special!
Sunita Staneslow w/ Harp
Sunita Staneslow
Sunita Staneslow is a native of Minnesota, lived in Israel for the past twenty years and since May 2022 is based in Shetland.
Sunita has become widely known for her accessible arrangements for the harp and has fifteen books published by Afghan Press, Seraphim Music and Mel Bay. A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, Sunita is classically trained but has a passion for traditional music. Her career has spanned many genres and she has recorded CDs of Jewish, Celtic and classical music.
From 2007-2022, Sunita worked as a therapeutic harpist at the Schneider Children's Medical Center in Israel. Sunita is a frequent performer and instructor at major North American folk harp festivals, was featured in the Virtual Harp Summit and is a lever harp instructor for the on-line Harp Column Academy.
In 2015, she spent six months with her husband cycling across Europe with her harp! They now run boutique harp tours of Scotland and are restoring an old stone house on the northern Shetland island of Unst.
Sharlene Wallace w/ Harp
Sharlene Wallace
Canadian harpist and composer Sharlene Wallace is a musician flowing between and mingling Classical, folk and contemporary genres and performing, recording and teaching on both pedal and lever harps.
Winner of the Lyon & Healy International Pop & Jazz Lever Harp Competition (USA) and the Dinan Concours d'Improvisation de Rencontres International de Harpe Celtique (Brittany), she has given concerts and workshops across Canada, the United States, France and Italy. Sharlene tours with bass player George Koller, fiddle player Anne Lindsay, the Winter's Eve Trio, and the Christmas ensemble Harp & Holly (Sharlene, Celtic harp, Sandra Swannell, vocals, fiddle and viola, Terry Young, vocals and finger-style guitar, Rob Ritchie, vocals and keyboard and Juanita Wilkins, vocals).
Sharlene's seven CDs express journeys of rhythm, spaciousness, the Canadian landscape, Celtic, Classical, South American and original music. Sharlene is also featured playing on Ron Korb's Grammy-nominated album Asia Beauty and most recently on Frank Horvat's Centrediscs albums Music for Self-Isolation and What Goes Around.
As an educator Sharlene has taught harp workshops across North America and annually for CAMMAC in Quebec and Island Mountain Arts in Wells, BC. She teaches both lever and pedal harps at York University and Wilfrid Laurier University.
Morag Northey w/ Cello
Morag Northey
Is a cellist, a teacher, a multi-disciplinary artist, writer, composer, singer, producer and director. Her work, regardless of medium, digs deep, moving and transforming lives. Spirit, community, and healing have always been central to Morag. As a cellist, composer and writer, she has offered healing through music in sacred spaces and nature, including all along the Francés pilgrimage route of the Camino de Santiago.
Morag is of Scottish and Welsh ancestry, was born on the land of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and raised on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish people. She is honoured to have lived her last thirty years on Treaty 7 land.
Morag Northey's 35 year career in classical performance, string pedagogy, passion for creating unique multi-genre art, and transformative instructional philosophies have shaped the artistic development of generations of young Canadian cellists. Her uncanny ability to unlock blocks in her students' connections with expression and the service of Art comes from an impeccably honest, non-judgmental, caring and safe place. This philosophy and method is shared equally with beginning, conservatory track, professional and avocational players.
Morag began her cello studies with Judith Fraser and Ian Hampton at the Vancouver Academy of Music, at the age of twelve. She then attended the Banff Centre with artists that include Zara Nelsova, Aldo Parisot and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, and has since participated as a cross-over multi-genre music and sound and theatre artist. Morag holds an Associate of Arts in Pedagogy and Performance from the Victoria Conservatory of Music and Camosun College studying with James Hunter. She earned a Toronto Professional Orchestral Training Program certificate where she performed in masterclass for Janos Starker and has a BA in Performance from the University of Texas at Austin with teacher and pedagogue Phyllis Young. Morag taught cello lessons, theory, ensemble classes and conducted youth orchestras in the UT at Austin's ground-breaking String Project, from 1985 to 1989.
Morag has maintained a large cello studio over the last 40 years in Vancouver, Texas and Calgary including individual and group lessons from early childhood, through teen and adult levels. Training in the Suzuki and Kodaly Methods, brought her to teach at the Calgary Suzuki Talent Education Society. Morag taught Early Childhood Cello on Faculty at Calgary's Mount Royal University Conservatory (pre-covid) and has been invited for five years to teach and perform at Marilyn Rummel and the Island Mountain Arts Harp and Cello Music Camp in Wells B.C. For sixteen years, she has conducted summer Cello and String Camps, where she draws from her wide range of experience to help students develop both classically and experimentally. From young students, learning their first bow hold at age three, to university entrance and advanced career counselling, the philosophy of love based, uncompromising nurturing is the constant goal. Her student, Elizabeth Jones, was recently accepted into the studio of Andreas Diaz at the Dallas Tx, Southern Methodist University, her student Lizzie Munson as one of Cirque Du Soleil's youngest talents performing in Las Vegas and Dubai as a Singer and Cellist, and her student Isaac Woollends (who had his first lesson at the Harp & Cello Camp 3 years ago) has been accepted into six Universities/Colleges and begins his post secondary cello performance journey at the Camosun College/Victoria Conservatory.
Shoshanna Godber w/ Harp
Shoshanna Godber
Shoshanna Godber is a Canadian harpist, singer, pianist and banjo player. She began her musical education with classical violin, piano and voice but was always drawn to her mother's Celtic music records. She started playing the harp while completing her Bachelor of Music at the University of British Columbia, and it very quickly eclipsed all of her other musical interests. Her repertoire has expanded from Celtic to traditional folk from all over the world, classical and contemporary compositions. She is a diverse performer and enjoys giving concerts of traditional and contemporary music with her guitarist (and husband) Dave Godber. She also performs regularly with Alban Classical and with her colleagues for the Prince George Conservatory of Music's chamber concert series. Shoshanna has recorded three albums of children's folk music and has contributed to other artist's projects as a session musician. Her catalogue of sheet music on Harp Column and her website is steadily increasing with her arrangements for harp and voice, harp ensemble and solo harp. Since 2012 Shoshanna has taught harp and directed a harp ensemble at the Conservatory and loves empowering her students to achieve their harp dreams.
SEUMAS GAGNE
Seumas Gagné has been playing the music of the Scottish and Irish Gaels on the Celtic harp for more than thirty years. After finishing his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Music at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, his attention returned to his first love, the traditional music of Scotland and Ireland. He was one of the founding members of the band Wicked Celts and recorded one CD with them, Prophecy and Blessing in 1997. That same year, Seumas and five friends from Slighe nan Gaidheal journeyed to the Royal Scottish National Mòd (a Gaelic music competition) in Inverness, Scotland where he won the Elspeth Hyllestad Trophy for solo clàrsach performance. At the time, he was the only American to have won this award. IMA is pleased to welcome Seumas back to the Harp School this year!
tristan legovic
Originally from Brittany, Tristan Le Govic was only six years old when he began learning the Celtic harp at the Conservatoire of Traditional Music of Soye (Plœmeur). The attraction to music will never leave him.
During his studies he gained numerous prizes and nominations that emphasize the recognition of a talented and accomplished musician. Performing on international stages, critics pronounce him as one of the leading Celtic harpers today.
During his time living in Ireland, then in Scotland - where he was appointed Celtic harp instructor within the City of Glasgow - he developed a deep sense for Celtic music both in a solo repertoire or with big names of the music world. For the 30th anniversary of the Edinburgh International Harp Festival (2011), the harpist Corrina Hewat invited him to take part in the performing of her masterpiece The Song of the Oak and The Ivy with Mary Macmaster, Wendy Stewart, Heather Downie and Bill Taylor.
Tristan Le Govic created his musical diversity by performing with other musicians such as the accordionist Samuel Le Hénanff, harpists Rachel Hair and Ailie Robertson or Enez trio, a band mixing Celtic music with jazz colors, founded with Stuart Macpherson (bass) and Roy Shearer (percussions). Introduced to the Nordic music by the Swedish singer Lise Enochsson, he developed a unique repertoire of Scandinavian music on the Celtic harp whose result was the recording of the CD Elva.
Recognizable by his sense of rhythm and harmony, his style is popular among the public and critics alike. Singer, storyteller, virtuoso musician, he founded his repertoire in the tradition and also with his own compositions. In perpetual movement, his world opens the gates of an extraordinary diversity. For the public, he is an enchanter.
He is the publisher of The Breton Harp Anthology, a unique collection of three music books featuring the best harpists in Brittany (Alan Stivell, Kristen Noguès...).
MARILYN RUMMEL
Playing for over thirty years, Marilyn teaches in her Harp Canada Studio in Duncan, Vancouver Island, and at the Nanaimo Conservatory of Music and is the founder of the Island Mountain Arts International Harp School. Since establishing herself on the Island, Marilyn has built up a very busy teaching schedule and is delighted to share what she's learned. Her students range in age from children to seniors, and are at all levels of study.
Learning to play the harp is a wonderful introduction to music, it is a common second or third instrument for musicians, and because the initial stages are so enjoyable, it makes a good instrument for those who have always wished they could play something, but felt they were "too old to learn". Of course there is no such thing on any instrument, but the accessibility of harp playing makes it a good fit for an older beginner. Regardless of the instrument or level, joy, magic, beauty, fun, (and practice!) are the ingredients for successful study. Marilyn emphasizes understanding of music from the very beginning and a strong theory component is included in all the lessons. To see what she and her students are doing visit: www.hcs.harpcanada.com
Felice Pomeranz
Felice Pomeranz, harpist, is a performer, teacher, entrepreneur, and recording artist. She holds advanced degrees from New England Conservatory of Music, in both classical and jazz harp. Felice is the first and only harpist at New England Conservatory to receive a Masters’ Degree in Jazz Studies. Ms. Pomeranz is Professor of Harp at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. She began the Harp Program in the String Department at Berklee College in 2002.
Ms. Pomeranz has been a clinician and performer at festivals throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, and the Caribbean. Her classical and popular arrangements for harp are available widely through harp outlets, as are her teaching DVD, Jazzy Beginnings and CD/workbook, Harp in the Band, Vol 1. Her newest book, Berklee Harp, serves as an etude and exercise book for harpists hoping to improve their pedaling, chord symbol reading, and improvisation skills. It is the first harp publication by Berklee Press, and is widely available through major harp outlets and Amazon. She is presently collaborating with Berklee alumni harpists, writing a contemporary etude book which includes studies addressing modern performance techniques, harmony, and rhythm.
Ms. Pomeranz directs the popular harp referral network, The Gilded Harps, organizing events throughout New England and beyond.
She is very active in the American Harp Society having served as New England Regional Director, Chair of the Lifetime Achievement Award, Chair of Conference Evaluations, and as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Her AHS Foundation Award, Kids for Camp, serves to provide a summer camp experience for needy and underprivileged youth. Visit Felice’s website, www.gildedharps.com, for photos, bookings and upcoming events.
Màiri Chaimbeul
Màiri Chaimbeul is a Boston-based harp player and composer from the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Described by Folk Radio UK as "astonishing", she is known for her versatile sound, which combines deep roots in Gaelic tradition with a distinctive improvising voice and honed classical technique.
Màiri has toured throughout the UK and in Europe as well as North America, was twice-nominated for the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award, finalist in the BBC Young Traditional & Jazz Musicians of the Year and twice participated in Savannah Music Festival's Acoustic Music Seminar. She is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music, where she attended with full-scholarship, and was awarded the prestigious American Roots Award.
Màiri can currently be heard regularly in duo with fiddler Jenna Moynihan, progressive-folk group Aerialists, the Brìghde Chaimbeul Trio, the Jacob Matheus Group, and legendary violinist Darol Anger & The Furies. She is featured in Series 2 of Julie Fowlis and Muireann NicAmhlaoibh's BBC Alba/TG4 television show, Port.
Recent highlights include performances at major festivals and events including the Cambridge Folk Festival, Fairport Cropredy Convention, Glasgow's Celtic Connections, Encuentro Internacional Maestros Del Arpa, Bogota, and Gent Festival of Flanders. Màiri is honored to have played with artists including Bruce Molsky, Julian Lage, Zakir Hussain, Kuljit Bhamra, and AR Rahman.