{"id":30551,"date":"2023-03-15T19:02:29","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T17:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.camac-harps.com\/blog\/?p=30551"},"modified":"2023-03-16T10:39:05","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T08:39:05","slug":"a-harp-for-the-arts-performance-centre-tsumeb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.camac-harps.com\/blog\/en\/latest\/a-harp-for-the-arts-performance-centre-tsumeb\/","title":{"rendered":"A harp for the Arts Performance Centre Tsumeb"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Preparing<\/a>

Preparing for a harp class concert at the APC<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Arts Performance Center (APC) in Tsumeb, Namibia is founder Lis Hidber\u2019s third such centre, supporting children and young adults to develop themselves and their prospects through the arts. 30 teachers and 10 support staff work with up to 300 students daily, studying music, visual arts, crafts, drama, dance and languages. It is committed to equipping its students with employable skills: engaging them later as teachers, supporting them to set up their own music or other arts schools, or seeing them secure positions in Namibian military bands, to give just three examples. Without state support, the APC currently relies mostly on donations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Nicola Hanck<\/p><\/div>\n

In 2011, Swiss harpist Nicola Hanck was seeking to experience another culture and way of life – ideally, working with children and with music. Because Lis Hidber is herself an amateur harpist, the APC featured a harp class, and this is how Nicola discovered it.<\/p>\n

\"Xenia<\/a>

Xenia Schindler<\/p><\/div>\n

She travelled to Namibia to work with the children and staff, the latter themselves mostly self-taught. \u201cI initially went for two weeks, and immediately found myself completely immersed in deep work\u201d, Nicola remembers. \u201cIt was such an intense experience, maybe of the kind where you either give it up straight away, or you can\u2019t let it go. I soon went back on the maximum tourist visa for a three-month stay, and repeatedly thereafter until the pandemic.<\/p>\n

What struck me most from the very beginning was not so much how we enjoyed making music, which seems to me to be a shared feeling pretty much anywhere in the world. It was what the students associate with music: they see it as a road to new possibilities. The children come daily and they practise like crazy, whenever the instruments are free. As a harp teacher, I almost never had to say anything twice; everything I said was absorbed very quickly. The teaching happens in groups, and if one child has trouble the other children jump in to help them. These were all things that stood out for me. Of course, the talented students do need additional input, beyond learning auto-didactically and then passing it on to the others. In addition to visits from volunteers like myself, we were able to raise funds for some string players to take part in the youth orchestra of the Menuhin Festival Gstaad.<\/p>\n\n\t\t