LANA SUMMER LYRE CONFERENCE 2023
/Sunday, July 30th (3 pm) – Thursday, August 3rd (12:30 pm)
Hawthorne Valley School, 330 County Road 21C, Ghent, NY 12075
Celebrating the Lives and Musical Contributions of Two Anthroposophic Music Therapists:
Maria Schüppel and Channa Seidenberg
Composers, educators, performers, and anthroposophic music therapists who lived and worked actively on either side of the Atlantic throughout decades of the 20th and early 21st centuries into their 80’s, Maria Schüppel and Channa Andriesse Seidenberg were pioneers in their work with the lyre and the music therapeutic impulse born out of anthroposophy.
After three years of being unable to hold our summer lyre conferences in the US, members and friends of the Lyre Association of North America will gather this summer in Harlemville, New York, on the campus of Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School to celebrate the lives and work of these two important anthroposophic music therapists. Both women were performers, Maria as a pianist and lyrist, and Channa as a vocalist and lyrist. Both were innovative teachers, who created their own courses and trained students in various aspects of music out of anthroposophy. And both women were versatile composers, whose beloved works have been appreciated and taken up both in Europe and in the North America. Each wrote particularly for the lyre and voice and, through these two separate and combined mediums, made important contributions to the understanding of how music affects the healing processes in the human being.
Presenting at this summer’s conference will be two musicians who have worked particularly with the music of Maria Schüppel and two musicians who have worked extensively with the music of Channa Seidenberg.
Christina Porkert was a student of Maria Schüppel at the Musiktherapeutische Arbeitsstätte (Center for Music Therapy) in Berlin and later being the co-founder with Christof-Andreas Lindenberg of the first English-speaking anthroposophic music therapy trainings, the Dorion School of Music Therapy.
Marcella Paz Moreno became an enthusiast and performer of some of Maria Schüppel’s music in Europe after her own traditional music training. Part of the music that we will take up together at our conference is a work called the Children of Lir with which both Christina and Marcella has extensive experience.
Diane Ingraham Barnes is a fellow singer and was a colleague of Channa Seidenberg over many years, who worked particularly with Channa’s vocal music and songs composed for children in the Mood of the Fifth.
Sheila Phelps Johns was a student as well as a colleague of Channa’s for several decades, co-creating a foundational course in music out of anthroposophy, which they taught together for over 12 years, working with both composed music and improvisational techniques for artistic and therapeutic purposes.
During our days together, we will explore both vocal and instrumental music composed by Maria Schüppel and Channa Seidenberg, exploring the artistic as well as the music therapeutic contributions of each composer that have left such a rich musical heritage to be further developed by those of us who appreciate the extraordinary musical legacies of Maria Schüppel and Channa Andriesse Seidenberg.
Please save these dates and plan to join us in Harlemville, NY at the end of July for this special celebration of the lives and musical contributions of these two important visionaries of anthroposophic music therapy!