Welcome

Dear friends,  

It is my greatest pleasure once again to announce the Second Tamnak Prathom- Thailand International Harp festival and Youth Competition 2012 to be held in beautiful Bangkok from August 15 to 19 when young competitors will be competing for the prestigious trophy presented by  Her Majesty the Queen of Thailand.

The first festival and competition in 2009 was ground-breaking in that    it was the first of its kind to be held in Southeast Asia and was participated by young harpists from eight different countries in Europe and Southeast Asia.

The second Festival promises to be no less exciting.The festival’s main aim is to highlight the harp as presented by some of the best harpists in the world as well as to provide a performance platform for young international concert artists and competition winners. Five scholarships will also be offered to those who will be participating in an international competition for the first time.

As the opening concert of the Festival with its focus on youth, the organizers are happy to present   three young international competition winners, Yeona Pi of Korea, winner of the Queen’s Trophy at the last competition, will start off the evening with the Winner’s Solo Recital.And sharing the stage with her will be Wales’ Mared Pugh Evans, who won the Junior Category of the Felix Godefroid Competition 2010 and   Artemy Izmaylov of Russia, winner of the Under Seventeen category of the Szeged Competition in Hungary.

We will also be honoured to have with us, British composer Paul Patterson, so well-loved by the young harpists for his “Bugs” and “Spiders” pieces. We cannot help but feel a little thrill of anticipation of what he might offer us as his commissioned set piece for the second round!

On this note, I can assure you that the whole festival will be a challenging and enjoyable one and I greatly look forward to seeing you all.

Elinor Bennett

Artistic Director