meet your instructors for Harp + Cello School 2023
Stephanie Claussen with harp, and smile!
Stephanie ClaUssen
Advanced Harp
Influenced by her love of fairy tales, Tolkien, and the world music section at her local library, Minnesota-based harpist Stephanie Claussen gravitates towards Scottish tunes, Bach preludes, and anything that sounds vaguely medieval or French. After starting harp at the age of seven, Claussen went on to obtain her B.M. in pedal harp performance from the University of Minnesota. In 2018 the Minnesota Regional Arts Council’s Next Step Grant sent her to Scotland to attend the Edinburgh International Harp Festival. A two-time winner at the Master level in the Minnesota Scottish Harp Competition, she competed at the 2018 Edinboro Highland Games in Pennsylvania and won the title of 2018 US National Scottish Harp Champion. In 2021 she performed as one of four finalists in the North America Princess Margaret Celtic Harp Competition. Her most recent publication The Road Home from Skye features Scottish and Irish tunes arranged for intermediate through advanced lever harp. When not making music, Claussen enjoys repainting her walls and drinking English Breakfast tea out of a real teacup.
Seumas Gagne sits on a concrete bench next to a harp, with trees and bushes in the background.
Seumas Gagne
Intermediate Harp
“Gaelic song explores the human experience in an intimate way that anyone can understand and appreciate with a little help from a knowledgeable guide.” – Seumas Gagné
Seumas Gagné has been playing the music of the Scottish and Irish Gaels on the 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. This music led him deeper into the world of the Gael until learning the Gaelic language became the natural next step. He began studying with Richard Hill in Seattle and along with his classmates helped found Slighe nan Gaidheal (say: SLEE-uh nun GAY-ull), Washington’s Gaelic language and cultural society.
Seumas 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 friends from Slighe nan Gaidheal journeyed to the Royal National Mòd (a Gaelic music competition) in Inverness, Scotland where he won the Elspeth Hyllestad Trophy for solo clàrsach performance.
In 2001, he returned to the Mòd in Scotland with a team of five friends and together they won the first-ever waulking song competition, sponsored by the Harris Tweed Authority. Seumas’ first solo CD, Baile Àrd, was released in February 2012. It includes a mix of traditional and original songs in Scottish Gaelic, as well as traditional dance music. Lyrics, translations, and instructional videos for the choruses of the songs on the CD are available at his web site, www.seumasgagne.com.
Morag Northey. The Pegbox of her cello is visible to the right of her face.
Morag Northey
Cello - All Levels
s 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.
Sharlene Wallace with her harp, pink glasses and a smile!
Sharlene Wallace
Intermediate Harp
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.