Lyre Association of North America
We welcome news, stories, short articles, photos, and announcements of lyre happenings in your region, reviews about any item in our music sales store, and ads from our members ... also your favorite songs to play at your region’s Advent Gardens.
The copy deadline is December 9th.
We look forward to hearing from you!! Contributions may be sent to lyrists@gmail.com.
Colin Tanser’s compositions in his book Lyre One, edited by Andrew Dyer and published by Upper Esk Music, is a rich collection of 22 varied, short pieces that can be played for festivals, healing, and inner enrichment. They are written variously for one or more lyres and other instruments, but many can be played by the solitary lyrist. Some are deceptively simple, and others take some careful practice to sound their best.
Here are a few comments on some of the pieces… I have performed the first piece, ‘Sarabande,’ for a funeral, and am preparing the ‘Advent Pastoral’ for the weeks before Christmas. For many years I have loved playing ‘Sun Child’ in the version for two lyres, and I am very much looking forward to seeing if I can develop the inspiring solo version presented in this collection.
‘Six Untitled pieces’ are deceptively simple, and the ‘Seven Modal Moods’ are a great introduction to modes and an invitation to work more with them.
Then there is ‘Breathing,’ working to accomplish the balance between breath and heart beat.
I am looking forward to working more with these compositions in the future.
Debbie Barford – Chicago, IL
Lyre One by Colin Tanser is available at LyreAssociation.org. “Twenty-one original compositions by Colin Tanser, some with variation - including ‘Sun Child’, Prelude to ‘Silent Stones’ , ‘Advent Pastoral’, and more.”
LANA’s music sales service has been growing and expanding at a rapid pace this year. The store has offered us a platform to reach out to the community, sharing free downloads in support of International Lyre Day and the Lyre Mantle of Sound initiative, showcasing contemporary composers’ latest works, and connecting customers to important historical texts. We sent out 433 orders (including PDF downloads) to 22 different countries in the past year, and we are thrilled that we were able to make lyre music and accessories available internationally.
This year we also added two important collections of used music. When our beloved lyre colleague, Kerry Lee, crossed the threshold in September of 2020, her family asked LANA to make her collection of books available to the community. The collection includes books on curative music therapy, music education and pedagogy, science, religion, health and healing, the natural world, and anthroposophy as well as volumes of music. The books are gently used and in good condition and can be found in The Kerry Lee Collection. In addition to this important collection of used books, we recently added a listing of books on music. These books are also lightly used and cover such topics as music history, contemporary musical research, and the biographies of composers (see the “Books on Music” page). We feel that these two collections include important books that will appeal to LANA members and non-lyrists alike, and that offering them is a form of outreach to the broader community.
As ever, we continue to sell the music of lyre composers, both contemporary and from generations past, from all over the world. Throughout the year, we receive many orders for beginner books such as Anna Cooper’s “How to Play the Lyre,” Gerhard Beilharz’s “Meeting the Lyre,” and Mechthild Laier and Gerhard Beilharz’s “A Guide to Playing the Pentatonic Children’s Lyre.” But we also have a diverse and rich collection of lyre music for solo or ensemble playing, for performance or practice, for festival and seasonal events, and for all levels of experience.
One of the updates to our store has been our new offering of PDF downloads. With the LANA-supported International Lyre Day in July 2020 and the “Lyre Mantle of Sound” project (initiated by Veronika Roemer), the music sales site became a storefront for free music downloads, which created a powerful musical bond between musicians all over the world. Over the course of the year, 383 pieces were downloaded for free and the music we made available included compositions by Channa Seidenberg, Christian Giersch and John Clark as well as arrangements by John Billing and Veronika Roemer. We are hoping to expand our inventory of free downloads as well as to make as many of our printed music books as possible available in digital format. PDF downloads get scores into players’ hands immediately and in a cost-effective way, which expands our customers’ access to lyre music.
We hope that LANA members will be inspired by our store as you look for ways to support your musical life with the lyre. We always welcome your suggestions and will do our best to help you find what you need.
By Diane Rowley Portland, OR
Harmonizing tones resounded through the open windows and doors and out into the verdant gardens and beehives as the fingers of four women gently kneaded the strings of their lyres; some tentatively, after months of disuse, some with confidence and skill, all with joy and gratitude for the opportunity to play music together.
We would like to extend heartfelt thanks to Margo Ketchum for taking the initiative to organize this small gathering of northwest lyre players at the home of Lucy O’Neal in Eugene, Oregon. Margo and her husband were planning a trip to Eugene to visit their son and his family, so she contacted lyre players in the region and extended the invitation to participate in a day of lyre playing while she was there. Three people responded, a date was set, music was shared, and a potluck was organized. On August 26th, Diane Rowley drove down from Portland to join Jo Forkish and Margo at Lucy’s welcoming home on a green hillside in the outskirts of Eugene.
We spent time at the beginning of the morning chatting and getting to know each other, discovering unique individual and shared backgrounds, experiences, and interests. We warmed up with the scale of the day (E) and sang and played Colin Tanser’s piece on the related planet of Jupiter. Then we dove into our chosen repertoire with Reigen zum Johannisfest by Beatrijs Gradenwitz, which we repeated again at the end of our session. In between, we played a variety of music, including two pieces by Julius Knierim that appeared in the Supplement to our most recent edition of Soundings: Zwischenspiel aus “Der treue Johannes” and Klingen und Nachklingen. Our remaining repertoire was Sarabanda by Corelli, the Ashokan Farewell, the Old Gaelic Prayer, Enchanted Wood by Colin Tanser, Sarabande by Handel, and Spielmusik für Zwei Leiern by Lothar Reubke.
We enjoyed a delicious and bountiful potluck lunch on Lucy’s porch overlooking the garden, and the temperature of the day could not have been more perfect as we visited and commiserated. By the end of the afternoon, we had made plans to meet and play together again soon. Our invigorating day of lyre playing was thoroughly enjoyed by all, as the vibrations of the strings resonated in our hearts and bones and brought smiles to our faces!
Manfred Bleffert Playing Celtic Cello
Dear LANA friends,
Many, many thanks to all of you all for your generous donations to support Manfred! Your great help is proving to be a big part of Manfred's healing process, and we are very, very thankful for that!
Manfred is slowly getting better, though he has not yet fully recovered, of course. He will be going into a rehabilitation program for the next two weeks, which should be very helpful.
It has been a great blessing that we have my little apartment in the south of Germany near Basel, which I have needed for my work as a eurythmy teacher in Switzerland. So Manfred is now living here with me, and we are very grateful for that. Manfred is looking at the possibility to work as a composer and much more. He just needs more space for working in wood, in stone, or for building instruments.
Time will show us the right way, I think. We are just so thankful that he is still living! Things could be such a struggle for him, but he is so very positive in his thoughts and his speech, also painting, writing, and just being here. It really is a wonder, and most wonderful!
Warmest greetings to you all and to everyone who is thinking of Manfred and sending good thoughts!
God bless you all,
Ulrike Bleffert
by Wendy Polich, Littleton, Colorado
The Rocky Mountain Lyre Choir: Holly Richardson (Carbondale, CO), Lorraine Curry (Glenwood Springs, CO), and Wendy Polich, (Littleton, CO)
We few lyrists of the Rocky Mountain region gathered over a July weekend as part of LANA’s regional summer-into-fall gatherings. For me, living on the Front Range near Denver, I always relish the opportunity to see my mountain lyre sisters, Holly and Lorraine. Each time I visit them it’s a breathtaking journey through pine and aspen forests and incredible mountain views, my little car chugging its way over not one, but two 11,000-foot mountain passes of the Continental Divide. The final 12-mile stretch of my 3-hour odyssey traverses through rugged Glenwood Canyon, equally breathtaking as you wind through its high mountain walls and tunnels along the Colorado River, a seemingly impossible place to put a railroad or an interstate, yet both are there, the interstate divided into an upper and lower highway, one above the other, in order to fit.
Both Glenwood Springs and nearby Carbondale, where Lorraine and Holly live, are charming, gorgeous, warmly hospitable places, just like these lyre sisters! It’s a magical nourishing place of natural beauty and sisterhood where my heart wells up with joy. And if that weren’t enough, the cherry on top is our communion with our lyre playing. After a year’s absence, we met where we left off, our lyres getting reacquainted with each other after reading the Calendar of the Soul verse, then streaming, improvising, singing; “Dona Nobis Pacem” and Colin Tanser’s “Sea Mist” among our favorites. And always there with us in spirit, listening intently or making mischief, was dear Hartmut, and, I imagine, Channa and Kerry, too.
Of course, I would be remiss not to acknowledge the darker side... that this was the first time I ever travelled that entire mountain corridor through veils of smoky haze coming from all across the West. Travelling through Glenwood Canyon was the first time since a year ago when the fires closed it for weeks. I was witness to the burn scar—the charred, barren canyonland annihilated by the fire—and after returning home, the canyon was again damaged and closed because of mighty mudslides.
I am so grateful that I have my lyre sisters and community to bring healing beauty, with intention, into the world.
Wendy Polich (Littleton, CO), Marianne Dietzel (Minnesota), and Virginia Anderson (Denver, CO)
And finally, I was pleasantly surprised when Marianne Dietzel, from Minnesota, contacted me recently because she was visiting Colorado and wanted to play lyre together! I contacted Virginia Anderson (who only lives 15 minutes from me yet we had never met) and we all got together to play this last Sunday. What a joy to play and sing for the first time ever together! It was as if we had always been playing together. After playing the tone of the day planetary scale and improvising on it, we played Colin Tanser’s “Sun Glimpse”, Thomas Pedroli’s “Prayer” arrangement, Channa Seidenberg’s “Though in Noon’s Heaven” round (while singing) and Christof-Andrea Lindenberg’s “Weaving Threads of Gold and Silver”. As we sent up prayerful tones and voices, we were nourished and grateful, since each of us are used to having to play alone.
I’m happy to report that Virginia and I will be playing together on a regular basis, and that Marianne and I are committed to going to the Czech Republic next year! Holly, Lorraine and I have committed to meeting at least once every quarter, and, I can’t wait to introduce them to Virginia and welcome her into the Rocky Mountain Lyre Choir. She will be a wonderful addition!
I look forward to reading about other regional gatherings!
Dear LANA members and friends of the lyre,
We are excited to share with each of you our 2020-2021 Annual Report of the Lyre Association of North America. You will hear the voices of almost all of our Board members in the various committee summaries. The compilation of reports included in this edition provide an exciting picture of the diverse programs and activities that have characterized this last year for our Association!
We have dedicated this Annual Report to our dear colleague and friend, Kerry Lee, who crossed the Threshold of Death last September 2020. We wished to take the opportunity this publication has provided for us to share with you a description of Kerry's life and the important role she played in the development of our lyre work in North America.
Please enjoy this once-a-year special issue of our Lyre Notes!
The LANA Board
Open the above link to read the Annual Report. Once there, click on the icon in the lower right hand corner to get an Index of each article so that you can choose to read them in any order you wish.
The LANA Board
The Lyre Association of North America is a non-profit organization whose mission is to initiate, to inspire, and to support the sounding of the modern lyre as a musical instrument in artistic, pedagogical, and therapeutic activities in North America and throughout the world.
Our aims are:
To foster the experience and recognition of the freed tone as well as the rediscovery and deepening of our capacity to listen.
To cultivate our community of members and friends through the following services:
Sponsoring conferences, concerts, and regional workshops for adults and children
Publishing a newsletter (Lyre Notes) and journal (Soundings), and to support the publishing of other materials relevant to our work
Providing the opportunity for members to rent or purchase LANA-owned lyres and to advertise used lyres for sale
Offering a music sales service for printed music, books, and journals in paper and digital format, along with lyre accessories
Helping to connect new lyrists with partners or mentors.
To promote lyre builders whose work aligns with LANA’s mission.
To collaborate with national and international colleagues to further support the development of our worldwide Movement for Musical Renewal in all of its manifestations, including innovations in anthroposophically-inspired instruments as well as the human voice.
The house and the workshop where Manfred Bleffert lived were completely destroyed by the devastating floods in the Ahr Valley, which is located in the Eifel, in western Germany.
In addition to all of his personal belongings, the workshop studio with instruments from his instrument and musical research, the entire compositional work, the painterly and graphic works as well as all sculptural works succumbed to the violence of the flood. The extensive writings from 50 years of research are destroyed or lost as well.
To read a letter from Manfred Bleffert’s wife, Ulrike, go to our blog post.
We welcome you to use LANA's website for your donation. If you wish to donate directly to the German fund for Manfred (in euros), use the information in this link.
LANA is receiving donations in all currencies toward the emergency aid fund set up for Manfred. Funds contributed via the Donate button below will be sent to that account in Germany by LANA.
Read more: German Village Rethinks Footprint After Floods.
by Karla Polanczyk, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, cantaro.com.br
In May we had one more Cântaro “birthday”...
We went through strong changes, when (unfortunately!) Flávia returned to São Paulo, in 2019. After that we had a new singing teacher who stayed a year and left. And then came Covid-19.
Our group is now a much smaller group than it was five years ago. We are now around 18 lyres in Belo Horizonte, among very beginners and advanced lyres. We remain always strong and aware of the importance of the lyre and kantele sounds in our world, especially nowadays. I (Karla) am now the only one responsible for the kantele, lyre and singing groups at Cântaro Belo Horizonte.
Whenever possible, as has been the case since April 2021, we have in-person classes, always according to covid-19 security protocols. Unfortunately, in Brazil, we don't know how long we will be able to keep classroom lessons. But even when classes need to be online, all students continue with classes, as best as they can, until the city is back up and running.
We had a very rich meeting with some lyre players from different classes, in a beautiful and opened place. We could play and sing together the pieces that everyone and every small group play, each in their class. It was a “meeting of groups", a small lyre workshop with Cântaro´s students.
Here are some photos of this meeting:
Pictured below: In the warmth of St. John´s festivities, united in singing and lyre, we renew our strength and rekindle our light, which we carry forward like our lanterns that show us the way each day, every day!
We always appreciate, after each class and each meeting, the possibility of having such wonderful lyres and kanteles to nourish our souls and our hearts!
I hope I was able to tell and show to you how important it is to us to continue this work playing the lyres, even in such difficult and, in so many different aspects, challenging times!
Karla Polanczyk
Warm greetings from Brazil!
Thank you all for completing the LANA survey regarding regional workshops.
The following people are willing to host or facilitate workshops in their areas. Please contact them for more information.
S E Michigan: Mary Lynn Channer and Nancy Carpenter – Lambertville or Detroit, MI
bdchanner@yahoo.com or nancycarpenter680@gmail.com
Virginia: Samantha Embrey – Crozet, VA
samantha@sembrey.net
Upstate New York: Christina Porkert – Kinderhook, NY
cep@fairpoint.net
Spring Valley area, New York: Saeko Cohn – Nyack, NY
fivepekingese@gmail.com
New Hampshire: Juliane Weeks – Peterborough, NH
juleweeks1@gmail.com
Kimberton, Pennsylvania: Veronika Roemer and Margo Ketchum – Kimberton, PA
lyrists@gmail.com
We were hoping to have workshops in all the regions, from sea to shining sea.
We also have requests from other lyrists in Texas, Eastern Ohio, Colorado and California (Los Angeles and San Francisco). We would love for them to have an opportunity to play with a group. If you would be able to host or facilitate an event for these lyrists this summer, please let us know, and we’ll be happy to send their information to you.
We are looking forward to seeing the pictures and reading the reports after your gatherings!
Nancy Carpenter and Debra Barford,
for the Lyre Board (lyrists@gmail.com)
German musician, composer, visual artist, and instrument maker Manfred Bleffert
A letter from Manfred Bleffert’s wife Ulrike
Date: 7/18/21
Subject: Greetings from the heart to everyone
Dear friends and people close to Manfred near and far!
We send you all warmth and comforting thoughts and big thanks for your deep sympathy, which gives us light and strength!
Yes, it is an unimaginable event that struck with full force and almost robbed Manfred of his life twice in a row. He had many helping good spirits with him when he stood alone in the top attic chamber on the night of July 14th to 15th and listened to the unleashed violence, which raged with unbelievable thunder and roar over the valley – 8-10m high! It had been raining extremely hard for many hours.
At midnight the rising water suddenly stood still, just a little under the roof ridge, the sky tore open and a bright starry sky appeared! Manfred had seen trees, houses, cars swim away and heard how the water tore away two whole walls of our house and the balconies. He stood at the window all night, sometimes singing, and experienced the dramatic rage of violence, which only gradually calmed down towards morning.
Johannes was in another house nearby; they couldn't talk to each other anymore. I myself was still in Freiburg; we wanted to go on vacation to the North Sea in a few days. Manfred had been able to call me again in the evening before all lines and the cellular network broke down, saying it was the end of the world.
I wasn't able to drive off until the next afternoon, only when the catastrophic weather and traffic conditions allowed it again. Bettina Westphal accompanied me with loving support. I wanted to pick up Manfred, who had been saved with Johannes in the meantime.
Towards the morning of the next day we both woke up very early at the same time. Manfred suddenly said the sentence: "Now the events are just reaching me," completely horrified.
Shortly afterwards, he suffered a heart attack.
He's doing reasonably well now, I'm allowed to visit him, but he's still in the intensive care unit. With our friends as well as volunteers from Bonn who are available here, we have meanwhile been able to rescue individual items from the house. The help is overwhelming and fills us with great gratitude!
Everything was under water. Nevertheless – we hope that it dries up. Individual sound tubes and cymbals lay on the completely destroyed ground, individual small sculptural works made of soapstone ... We keep looking ... many friends and our children have offered their help!
Large parts of the house and the whole studio workshop, all musical instruments and the whole household have disappeared in the floods and with it all of Manfred's artistic work from 50 years. It is incomprehensible and still needs to be understood. Irreparable destruction that cannot be physically rebuilt.
Due to my work as a eurythmist in the south, which will end at the end of January with my retirement, there is a small household available for us, including some of Manfred's work, of course. Manfred will join me in Freiburg after his extensive recovery. From there we will look for our "place to live in old age" and trust that we will find it! A place where we can continue our artistic work together. ....
I greet you all near and far in the world in Manfred's name with the light of the heart and great joy over this almost stolen but newly given life for him, the life that gives us so much to work, to learn, to understand – something full of light and pain to the same extent. We do not want to give up our gratitude and hope, bearing Rudolf Steiner's words within us:
Light divine,
Christ-Sun,
Warm our hearts;
Enlighten our heads;
That good may become
What from our hearts we are founding,
What from our heads we direct,
With focused will.
With heartfelt thoughts and in Manfred's name and will,
Ulrike (ulrikebleffert@posteo.de)
Read the article Travels with Manfred about David Adams’ 2014 visit to Manfred and his home and studio in Heiligenberg, Germany, which includes various photos of his paintings, sculptures, furniture, and unusual musical instruments. From the Art Section Newsletter, No. 42, Autumn-Winter 2014, pp. 35-39.
The Beings of Silence: An Introduction to the Musical Work of Manfred Bleffert – From Soundings 3, 2 (Spring 2011): 5-14, published by the Lyre Association of North America.
Read a report on Workshops with Manfred Bleffert in a 2010 article by David Adams, published in Being Human: https://www.rudolfsteiner.org/fileadmin/user_upload/being_human/bh-articles/adams/Bleffert-Adams2.pdf
Field of Strings
"Field of Strings" was one of Manfred’s one-of-a-kind original instruments, consisting of 12 rectangular "Lyres" linked together on a stand in a half circle. Lots of fun to play (but now probably destroyed).
(Jan 5, 1943 – June 26, 2021)
Biography by Jennie Tanser
Colin Tanser was born on January 5th, 1943, five days later than his wife Jennie! Throughout his life he sustained a deep love for music, which manifested in many diverse directions, and we were most fortunate in that we could often work together artistically, recognizing that this was an important part of our life together.
His first instrument was piano, then the organ. He played flute, all the recorders, French horn, tuba, accordion, banjo, double bass, classical guitar, harp, also the lyre, which he was always enthusiastic to promote. He studied music in college, then taught in schools, becoming Head of Department. He played all kinds of music in the ‘O.K. Band’ in Sheffield and played music for stage performances, helping children in his class in the Steiner School to make and play their own pipes.
In Stroud he taught private lessons in several instruments and took a class in Cotswold Chine School, where he began to work therapeutically with music based on the ‘Image of Man’ in accordance with anthroposophical principles. This was developed further in the Camphill schools for pupils with special needs, and he pioneered a three-year training course in music therapy for students of Curative Education.
Colin was very involved with color-light therapy for which he played the lyre, working with the planetary scales and the tone for the day. He also created songs for the festivals of the year and for various events and occasions, and these have been sung in many different countries.
His lyre music has been very much appreciated and admired. It has been played all over the world, including a work commissioned for the international lyre concert in Belfast in 2006, played by two hundred lyres. This piece, ‘Everyman’, included a children’s choir and hand bells and was a huge triumph.
Colin has inspired many people through his modest nature and his love of music. (Listen to ‘Everyman’ on LANA’s website.)
Jennie Tanser / Upper Esk Music
Andrew Dyer, of Upper Esk Music, has prepared this song so that it can be printed out and distributed freely. Andrew has printed all of Colin's music, and it's wonderful that it is now all easily available through the Upper Esk website as well as through the Lyre Association of North America.
The lyre world does not have too many composers of the caliber and diversity of Colin and his wonderful music, so we can all pay tribute to him, and the gifts he has left us.
With thanks, and humility, Anna Cooper
Since our much-anticipated 2021 World Lyre Conference in the Czech Republic has been postponed until next year, LANA has stepped in to provide our members and friends in North America with another opportunity that we feel could bridge the gap this summer.
The LANA Board would like to encourage and support some in-person regional lyre gatherings this summer and into the fall. In our last Annual Report, we included a map that divided our membership into regions so that lyrists could be aware of the geographic locations of other lyre enthusiasts in their local areas. For your interest, we have included this map along with the link to a brief survey to kick off this process in order to provide us with information we can use in helping to support as many gatherings as possible. Of course, each person could choose to host or participate freely with whatever group anyone would like to gather or invite.
In the survey, we ask about your personal interest to participate in such a gathering and what parameters (location, dates, timing, etc.) would work best for you. We also ask if you might be willing to host such a gathering in your local area. Importantly, we ask if you imagine that a group in your area might wish to be joined by an experienced lyre teacher to guide or facilitate such a gathering. Finally, we ask for volunteers who might be willing to serve as such traveling teachers.
Your Lyre Association has made the decision to cover travel expenses of volunteer teachers up to $500 per teacher, if the local group is willing to host them and perhaps collect a modest gratuity for them. All details would be decided by the general consensus of the local participants with our support as needed.
So we are beginning this process by gathering information to see how LANA can best support our members and friends in this opportunity to start making music together again. Your responses to our questions will allow us to do this, and we hope that everyone who even has a remote possibility to participate in such a gathering will please respond to this brief survey. We have already heard from one international colleague that he will take this into consideration in planning a personal trip to the States this summer so that he might be able to participate in one of our regional events!
Over the last 14 months, we have all had to become very creative in seeking for soul-nourishing ways to support our music-making and lyre-playing in the absence of being able to gather as we normally would. This summer, the LANA Board would like to work with our members and friends to take advantage of new possibilities that exist for us now to move in the direction of playing together again in anticipation of our World Lyre Conference in 2022. Please help us to do this by taking a moment to respond to this survey so that we can support each other in these efforts!
Go to: https://fs3.formsite.com/lyrists/form7/index.html
Sincerely,
Sheila Johns, for LANA
The LANA store has recently added John Billing’s “Music from Ireland” (volumes 1 and 2) to our collection. Each of the two volumes contains eight Irish melodies set for lyres. The melodies are arranged as solos, duos and trios (or quartets), offering many possible ensemble combinations for these exceptionally beautiful tunes.
Read MoreMost of us were fortunate to be introduced to the lyre by a teacher or friend who deftly guided and supported our relationship with the instrument. The influence of our early mentors played a role in our successful mastering of skills and the passion we feel for the lyre. The nature of the instrument was enlivened by the social context in which we learned and the relationships nurtured as we played.
To create an opportunity for LANA members to keep the cycle of mentoring alive, The Lyre Connection program offers a forum for experienced lyrists to support and encourage a growing community of beginners. As we move the lyre forward in the 21st century, we are enthusiastic about sharing our instrument with a new generation of players.
The Lyre Connection connects volunteer mentors with students who have questions. Often we are contacted by new lyrists who need some help getting oriented to the instrument. They need a few coaching sessions: perhaps some suggestions on best beginner books, tips on how to hold the instrument, and basic tuning guidance. Sometimes there are more advanced players with specific questions particular to the lyre: choices of repertoire, the relevance of 432 tuning, or how to work with the planetary scales (to name just a few possibilities!). Whatever your level of lyre-playing experience, your skills are needed!
If you can volunteer a few hours of your time in support of the lyre community, we encourage you to consider becoming a volunteer mentor through our Lyre Connection program. The relationship between the mentor and the new student will be defined based on your time, interests, and abilities. We encourage mentors to be available as a resource for a month or two if matched with a beginner. Once the student is more confident, the mentor may opt to transition into a traditional (paid) teacher role, or a new teacher may be found for the student.
Please fill out the mentor questionnaire (here), which will help us match you with a student seeking a mentor. We will offer tips and suggestions to mentors, and we will work toward pairing them with students by region.
Please contact Diane Barnes at dianeibarnes1@gmail.com if you would like to learn more about this initiative and become a mentor. Thank you!
We have just added a new 7-string Choroi pentatonic children’s lyre to our inventory of rental lyres. This beautiful little children’s lyre is brand new and comes in its own wooden case. It is perfect for children and adults alike and is at home in the classroom or therapeutic settings. It is a very adaptable instrument with a lovely sound.
The Choroi pentatonic children’s lyre can be rented from the Lyre Association of North America for $20 a month and is also available through our rent-to-buy program.
For a complete list of available instruments, see: http://lyreassociation.org/lyre-rentals
Thanks to all of you, LANA’s Auction brought in $3,882.00 – exceeding our goal by $382! We SO appreciate the many donations and bids that made for a successful auction!!!
We’ve sent emails to all the winning bidders to connect them to the donors, so expect to be hearing from them soon. (And please let us know if the email did not make it all the way to your inbox!)
–Wendy Polich, for the Auction Committee
Dear Friends,
We received the following message from our friends in the Czech Republic. In the meantime, the LANA Board will be discussing other possibilities for lyre gatherings this summer. Stay tuned!
Unfortunately, due to the pandemic situation, we will have to postpone the conference until next year at approximately the same time (hopefully from the 7th to the 14th of August, 2022).
I am so sorry for this complication, but I hope that next year the conference can be held without the restrictions, and with people from all countries who wish to attend.
With warm regards,
Helena Hlaváčková
Channa Seidenberg
The Board of the Lyre Association of North America wishes to remember our dear friend and LANA Board colleague, Channa Seidenberg on the first anniversary of her passing.
Channa was introduced to the lyre in 1971, and in 1982, she was among the group of five founding members of the Association for Promoting the Lyre as a New Instrument (APLANI), which led to the establishment of the Lyre Association of North America in 1991. Channa played a decisive role in the development of the lyre work in North America, and she served continuously on our Association board for 37 years until the time of her passing in March.
As an active member of LANA, Channa helped to plan and organize conferences with a focus on teaching youth as well as building networks among lyre builders. She taught lyre students from all around the globe, and in her later years, she traveled to China to lead workshops on the lyre, singing, and listening. Her networking skills proved invaluable in supporting the creation and development of the international lyre community over the last 20 years.
Channa promoted and taught the lyre to adults and children for over three decades. She developed a two-handed approach to the 7-string pentatonic lyre and created a pedagogical path of lyre development for children. One of her areas of specialty with the chromatic lyre was the mirrored or planetary scales. She delighted in introducing these unique scales to adults using a phenomenological approach through listening.
Channa’s great gift as a lyrist was her ability to improvise. She both composed and improvised for many plays as well as for fairy tale and puppet performances, and she worked extensively on the development of lyre music for the sequence of Raphael Madonna paintings, improvised out of her study of the circle of fifths and the accompanying eurythmy gestures and presented during every Advent and Holy Nights’ season.
Channa was one of the founding members of the Resonare Foundation Course in Music out of Anthroposophy, where for 12 years, she led singing, lyre, improvisation, and dedicated listening sessions with the musical intervals. Channa’s professional training was in voice, and she was a teacher of the Werbeck School for Uncovering the Voice for over three decades. She was a prolific composer who penned volumes of beloved rounds and choral pieces as well as instrumental and incidental music for many occasions, including festivals and in celebration of personal milestones, such as christenings and weddings. In addition, she was a teacher of the Werbeck-based therapeutic singing work, and she also trained and practiced as an anthroposophic music therapist.
Again and again, Channa’s biography demonstrates her strength and resiliency – in the death of her father at the hand of Nazis, in her “adoption” by a Christian family in Holland during World War II, in the testing of her Orthodox Jewish background, in her recognition of anthroposophy, and in her care of those with developmental differences as her life’s path as well as through her life-long passion for music. Channa knew that the traditional path she was born into was not her individual path, and she searched for her teachers with resolve. If she was convinced that someone was a teacher who could help her along her path, she didn’t let “no” dissuade her.
Music was the soul of Channa’s life in singing, playing, composing, directing, and music therapy. When the “red threads” of her life – music and anthroposophy – joined together, Channa recognized her work, and her devotion to her path was consuming. She was the creator and director of the Camphill Village Ensemble in Copake, NY, which played in many venues, including Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, and she collaborated over the years with many renowned musicians. After her return to Copake in 2017 following her leg injury in China, she remained actively engaged in the Camphill life rhythms, contributing to the social aspect of the community through leading singing and continuing to teach lyre and offer music therapeutically.
After three separate struggles with cancer, Channa passed on March 14, 2020, joining her husband Leon, who died in 2005, and her half-brother Jonathan, who died in 2018. In addition to her colleagues in the international lyre community, Channa leaves behind much-loved sons Andreas and Julian, their families, and two sisters, one in New York and the other in Israel.
