2014 LANA Summer Intensive

“Playing the Lyre with Joy” 

As most of our members and friends know, every three years, the Lyre Association of North America hosts a lyre intensive for our summer gathering.  Such intensives are specifically designed to support lyrists of all ages and stages in their individual work with our amazing instrument, the lyre.  To guide us in 2008, we welcomed master teacher Anna Prokovnik Cooper from Northern Ireland, and in 2011, we were privileged to have Gerhard Beilharz from Germany. 

This summer of 2014, we are very pleased to be able to welcome yet another internationally recognized master teacher—Hajime Kira from Tokyo, Japan!  Hajime was trained as a lyrist in Germany and was subsequently instrumental in bringing the work of the lyre to Japan and building it up in an extraordinary way.  Japan is now one of the flagship locations in the world for lyre teaching and playing.  Hajime has presented at all of our international lyre conferences, and those of us who have attended his workshops have been introduced to remarkable techniques and exercises that have addressed all aspects of lyre playing, from technical skill building to tone production.

In addition to alternating the focus of our summer conferences in a three-year rhythm, LANA has sought to vary the conference locations in an effort to reach as many lyrists or would-be lyrists across our vast country as possible.  We are very pleased to have an opportunity this summer of 2014 to host our conference in beautiful Portland, Oregon, at the Cedarwood Waldorf School cedarwoodschool.org  from Wednesday evening, July 30 through Sunday morning, August 3.

In our next Lyre Notes, we will have more detailed information about our conference as well as links to registration.  In the meantime, we want to share our excitement for both the content and the venue for what we are confident will prove to be one of our most valuable and enjoyable conferences ever!  Please plan to join us~

Sheila P. Johns, for the Lyre Board