Patricia Gill, Denmark Bulletin

Shamara de Tissera began to play the harp as a young woman when pregnant with her son and no longer able to do eurythmia.

Too big for the expression of body movement to spoken word, Shamara, while living in Melbourne, took up the harp.

“I could feel the vibrations in my belly – it was beautiful,” she said.

Her son, now a ‘crazy mathematician’, has a calm temperament, and loves Baroque music, particularly Bach and Telemann.

New Zealand-born of Sri Lankan parents, Shamara returned to Perth in 2006 and joined the WA Harp Society, eventually becoming president.

With her move to Denmark and first performance directing the Hildegard Harp Meditation at the Brave New Works Festival in January, she brought a wave of interest in the instrument.

At the concert, Shamara combined a choir with the ‘therapeutic’ harpists.

The five-member Swan Harps Ensemble struck up with Shamara’s first local harp student, Gabrielle Young, followed by Vicky Wilson. After the Hildegard Harp Meditation in the Denmark Civic Centre, Vicky was rubbing her hands keen to start lessons.

Then followed Sue Nikoletti and Beate Wasch, whose harp is made by her husband, John Underwood, one of 10 he has made.

Since then they have performed at Denmark, Mt Barker and Albany and they will perform Nine Lessons and Carols at Albany Uniting Church and the Civic Centre on December 20 and 21, respectively.

That will feature the Swan Harp Ensemble, a choir, brass quartet and organ.

A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is a Christmas Eve service held in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge since 1918.

Shamara believes her students should start to perform from early stages.

“When are you ever ready to perform? We build confidence to perform in that process.”

Among one of the more joyful performances has been Shamara’s visit to John Underwood’s nursing home in Perth where she played in a courtyard to the delight of residents.

Violinist Beate had brought along her instrument and accompanied Shamara.

Bedside performances are not new to Shamara who played to hospice patients before moving to Denmark.

Beate says playing a harp is not necessarily easier than a violin though with a harp, ‘you can’t make such a mess’.

Shamara says even a badly-played harp will sound beautiful.

While also teaching singing and piano, and playing the Indian tabla, sitar, among others, Shamara plays the French horn in the Albany Sinfonia.

One of Australia’s notable teachers and performers, the late Molly McGurk, taught Shamara singing and the American singer, actor and vocal coach, Seth Riggs.

She is the director of the local choir Swan Harp Singers.

Shamara’s past experience with a pilot study of 27 students each of whom studied piano and/or singing showed good results as singers once they had learned the harp.

The more boisterous singers, for example music theatre students, became more refined and accurate.

When the piano students, who were shy to sing, played harp they sang with increased confidence and strength.

They were able to slip into the harp’s accumulating resonance. “It always builds around you as you play,” Shamara says.

“You pluck one string, you pluck another and that build up of sound keeps resonating, like a cradle of sound that surrounds you.”

Swan Harp is part of the Beloved Bach project, exploring choral-orchestral works of J.S. Bach and other master composers with the aim of nurturing musical talent in the Great Southern.

Through study, workshops, rehearsals and performances the five-year exploration will enrich the local musical landscape with live, inclusive and collaborative performances.

This article appeared in the Denmark Bulletin, 5 December 2024.