Listening with the Body: A Harp Journey

Alice Giles, harp

Moran Wiesel, harp

Alice Giles and Moran Wiesel are a heartwarming mother/daughter collaboration. Their focus is on merging disciplines, collaborating on a range of performance projects, including the Musica Viva in Schools Adventure in Antarctica show. They have forged a strong on-stage bond and extensive experience in responding to an audience in the moment.

Alice Giles AM is celebrated as one of the world’s leading harpists. First Prize winner of the Eighth Israel International Harp Contest, she has had a wide and varied international solo career, from London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s Merkin, ‘92nd St Y’ and Carnegie Halls, to Mawson Station, Antarctica. She was regarded by Luciano Berio as the foremost interpreter of his Sequenza II. As Director of the Seven Harp Ensemble (SHE) has commissioned many new works by Australian composers as well as solo works for the electro-acoustic harp.

A guest artist at numerous international festivals, including the Marlboro Music Festival, Schleswig-Holstein and Insel Hombroich Festivals in Germany, all the major Australian chamber music festivals, and as soloist with orchestras such as the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Collegium Musicum Zürich, and all the major Australian Symphony and Chamber orchestras, Alice also has an impressive record as a teacher, giving Master Classes in the world’s major music institutions.

She was Artistic Director of the World Harp Congress Sydney 2014, founding Director of the non-profit company Harp Centre Australia, and is currently Lecturer in Harp at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.  Her annual summer course, held in Kioloa on the NSW South Coast, is now in its fifteenth year.

She was awarded an AM (Member of the Order of Australia) in the 2017 Queen’s Birthday Honours for “Significant service to the performing arts as a harpist, mentor and educator, and through contributions to Australia’s musical landscape.” www.alicegiles.com

Moran Wiesel is a musician, ecotherapist/facilitator, and wordsmith. As an ecotherapist/facilitator, Moran has founded Earth Enspiralled, offering earth connection/ movement workshops and wholistic counselling services. Highlights include takanya Deep Ecology Immersion, kunanyi moves, and a partnership with Kickstart Arts to present Embodied Earth, Embodied Arts: Work that Reconnects. In 2019 Moran co-founded EarthWalks: Walking Connections in Country in mannalegna’s Country (NE Tasmania).

As a harpist/flautist they have toured with Musica Viva in Schools’ “Adventures in Antarctica”. They offer therapeutic sound journeys, and together with yidaki player Tim Devereux form the duo Moran & Tim, playing in forests, caves, and Nyari Niara Good Spirit Festival events. Moran studied flute with CSO flautist Teresa Rabe, acquiring an A.T.C.L. (Associate Trinity College London), Distinction, and with world-renowned harpists Alice Giles AM, Jacinta Dennett, and Diana Rowan.

Moran is also a spoken word poet and storyteller. They were a Tasmanian finalist in the 2021 and 2022 Australian Poetry Slams, winner of the 2022 Huon Valley Mid-Winter Fest Storytellers Cup, and featured artist in the 2022 Tasmanian Storytelling Festival. Moran thrives in collaborating across artforms to create works that deeply question our relationship with ourselves, community, earth, and the universe. Listening with the Body: A Harp Journey is one such collaboration, weaving together Moran’s passion for creative embodiment and intentional spaces for healing and connection, allowing whatever to be, to be.