AHJ, Vol. 7 No. 4, Winter 1980

Elie Siegmeister, Sioned Williams, Lucien Thomson, Pearl Chertok, and Bernard Grandjany at a reception following the concert.
Two debut programs were well-received by New
York City public and critics this past season. Sioned
Williams, Welsh harpist and winner of the Concert
Artists Guild competition, performed at Carnegie
Recital Hall on the evening of 8 April 1980 in the
middle of the transit strike. Raymond Ericson of the
New York Times wrote:
There were no doubts about her ability as a performer. Her
playing was technically smooth, accurate, rhythmically
steady and alive with color . . . . The Sonatine (Op. 30) of
Marcel Tournier, the noted French harpist, in a way comes
to terms with the harp and lets it do what it does best. It
provides the player with virtuoso effects to be exploited, and
they work beautifully. Miss Williams played it excellently,
as she had everything on the program, with lovely washes of
color and great delicacy.
In May Mary Emily Mitchell offered her program at
the Abraham Goodman House. Joseph Horowitz, also
of the New York Times, observed:
The harp is such an intractable solo instrument that merely
to play difficult music cleanly and accurately can seem a feat
worth noticing. But the first thing one noticed about Emily
Mitchell's playing Saturday night ... was her mature,
incisive musicianship, her sure grasp of style, her ability to
mold long phrases, the bold intensity of her climaxes. It
seemed mainly incidental that she also proved a superb
executant, demonstrating a broad range of color and
dynamics, and unusual facility in running passages.
In short, Miss Mitchell, who won first prize in the 1979
International Harp Contest in Jerusalem, is a marvelous
harpist whose technical skills seem always at the service of
the music.
Ms. Mitchell represented the AHS as exchange
recitalist at the 20th International Harpcourse in
Holland this past summer, and was featured as one of
the "Young Artists of 1980" in the July 1980 issue of
Musical America.
Winter/1980
Emily Mitchell
Dean Morrette Rider of the University of Oregon
has announced the winners of the Ruth Lorraine
Close Musical Fellowship Awards in Music. The
three grants of $2,000.00 each were won by Sarah
Bullen, Ann Pemberton-Roush, and Catherine White.
Sally Maxwell administers the competition for the
American Harp Society. (Photograph of Ann
Pemberton-Roush not received at press time.)
On the b., ,is of an audition by invitation, Barbara
Allen has been chosen principal harpist with the San
Francisco Symphony for the 1980- 81 season. Anne
Adams, who joined the Symphony in 1941, is retiring
from the job in order to have more time for solo
playing, chamber music, and the San Francisco
Opera which now runs concurrently with the Sym-
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