But for the past 45 years I've had WONDERFUL employees and helpers. In honor of Labor Day here in the US next week, this newsletter is all about some of the amazing harp players who have helped me over the years. 

This month's featured composer is Shawna Selline.  As you'll read in her article below, I met her when she was just 11 years old. She was never an official store employee, but she worked for me on numerous occasions when I had a booth selling harps at street fairs.  The most notorious of these events was 2 years at the L.A. County Fair in the 1980s: 18 days straight, 10 to 12 hours a day, outside in the September heat of southern California!    Shawna was a real trooper, and played the harp pretty much non-stop for hours and hours.  I particularly remember one day when she got so bored she closed her eyes and randomly flipped sharping levers on her harp.  Then she played her pieces!   Needless to say, they sounded "interesting."    The photo above shows Shawna in the Harp Center booth in 1983.

Shawna has recently re-issued her book of compositions for solo harp, and harp and flute, which  I'm proudly selling it as a PDF download.  It is part of this month's sale.  (See below.)

This got me thinking about how many of my former workers have gone on to publish their own music. Here's a list.

Cynthia Artish helped me out at a variety of fairs throughout Southern California in the late 1980s, including Palm Springs, Westwood, Long Beach, and more.

And here's a little known fact. Lisa Lynne worked at my store tuning harps in the 1990s!  She lived just around the corner from my Glendale store, and came in twice a week to tune over 50 harps.  I think that was great training for her, since she now travels with 20 harps for her amazing Harps for Hearts program. Her Peaceful Heart PDF is on sale this month.

Megan Metheney worked at my Glendale store from 2003 to 2004.  She also has a brand new, and very unique, PDF on sale this month: Bernard's Christmas.

Joyce Rice, who was featured in my January 2015 Newsletter, worked at my store in Glendale in the early 1990s. I now sell 15 of her books and sheets as PDFs. Moonbeams is her best-seller on our site, so it is on sale this month.

Heidi Speigel worked for me the longest (25 years), and made it possible for me to leave the store for months at a time to go to Hawaii to write music. Although she has never published harp music, she was the illustrator for many of my books including: 50 Irish Melodies, 52 Scottish Songs, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Beauty and the Beast, Jesu, Chanukah Music,  In the Bleak Midwinter, Dead Poets Society, and my entire series of sheets of American music.

Wow!  That is quite an impressive list.  I am very fortunate to have had these people as part of my team for many years.  My thanks go out to each and every one of them!