Imaginative and fresh instrumental arrangements of traditional Christmas carols blended with Celtic and classical motifs and performed on Celtic harp with flute, panpipes, portative organ, recorder, piccolo and clay flute.

19 MP3 Songs
CLASSICAL: Traditional, WORLD: Celtic



Details:
Becky and Ernie Brock's CD COMFORT AND JOY has been aired for several seasons over NPR stations throughout Florida.

Steve MacQueen of the Tallahassee Democrat wrote "If all this garish pop-music Christmas is getting at you...then Ernie and Becky Brock have the perfect tonic! The music on the CD is delicate and lovely. Its 19 selections are free of any of the truly annoying commercial Christmas tunes, concentrating instead on traditional Christmas melodies."

Becky says of COMFORT AND JOY: "We wanted it to be the kind of recording you could play while decorating the tree, or have playing for a relaxed Christmas dinner. We wanted the music to give reassurance of hope and peace to everyone in these troubled times."

Becky and Ernie are also studio music teachers in Lynn Haven, Florida, where they teach over 100 students to play harp, piano or flute.

They are best known in harp and flute circles for their arrangements and transcriptions of music for the lever harp (or pedal harp) and flute published by their company, Arrière-Cour Productions. Many of the selections on the two CDs above are available for use by other harp and flute duos in their nine collections of printed music. (For a list of the printed music collections and distributors please visit our website: www.harpandflutemusic.com).

The Brocks have performed and presented workshops at the 1998 International Folk Harp Society Conference in Galveston, at the Beginning in The Middle sponsored by The Harp Column in Williamsburg, Virginia in February of 1999, as well as at the festival sponsored by of the Florida Harpers and Friends in 2000.

Ernie and Becky have also performed in many chamber music recitals along the Gulf Coast of Florida and Alabama, playing harp, flute, cello and the Hubbard bentside spinet harpsichord that Becky built in 1981.

Of the Brock's other recording ENCHANTMENT, Patrice Cardenas in The Folk Harp Journal's Harpsounds review wrote: "This is relaxing...this duo presents a very pleasant, refreshing program of Baroque, Romantic and 20th century classical selections with a suprisingly unstuffy attitude....the variety of pieces keep the listener's interest."

Caesar Giovannini, composer of the selection Morocco said of the Brocks' recording: "Your performance and interpretation of Morocco is exactly what I had in mind....the celtic harp works perfectly as the accompaniment. As a composer, it's impossible to indicate every nuance I visualize in whatever I'm writing, that's when the performer has to have some imagination and "do something" with the notes, as you did."

ENCHANTMENT has been played by massage therapists for their customers' relaxation, by aerobics instructors in the "cool-down" after a hard work-out, and by school teachers to help calm their young students and focus their minds.

(The cover art for both CDs are silkscreens copyrighted by Mobile, Alabama artist Kurtis Thomas.)