St David's Day Appeal - Young American Harpist Dreams of Wales

Feb. 22, 2010 - PRLog -- The Baltimore music student will be eighteen years old when the competition happens in April, in Caernarfon, Gwynedd.  In 2011, she'll be nineteen and above the maximum age for competition.

Laura "fell in love" with the harp as a toddler on Christmas visits to her parents' vacation cottage in Wales.  Her family relocated to Wales in her early teens and she was lucky enough to attend a high school that had a concert harp and a "wonderful teacher who came to the school once a week and gave harp lessons."  There she passed, with merit, her exam by through the Royal Schools of Music and decided to make the harp her career.  Her family returned to the United States in her sophomore year and Laura continued studying the harp and today is working toward a Bachelor’s of Music degree in Harp Performance through the Peabody Institute Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University.  The Peabody Institute is a music and dance school located in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1857 by George Peabody, it was the first academy of music started in the United States.

Laura's teacher at the Peabody Conservatory, Dr. Ruth Inglefield, approached her with the idea of competing in Wales and Laura "was simply over the moon with excitement."  Neither of them had heard of the competition until a few days before the entry deadline but Laura decided to apply, that the opportunity was too good to miss and she had to somehow find a way to get to Wales and compete.

On the internet, Laura found AmeriCymru, a social network for Welsh Americans and anyone interested in Wales and its culture.  She wrote to the network organizers and they started a campaign for her on their web site.  Members have begun to send in donations and a special appeal is planned for Saint David's Day, March 1st, the national holiday of Wales in the same way that Saint Patrick's Day is an Irish holiday.  "Laura's exactly what we started this network for," says founder Ceri Shaw, a native of Cardiff, Wales now an American citizen living in Portland, Oregon, "We wanted to help Welsh-Americans find each other and help Welsh and Americans find each other.  Here's an American who loves the Welsh harp and who will play it well and we want to do what we can to help her."

Anyone interested in Laura's appeal can find out more about her or contribute at 'Laura Stokes, St. David's Day appeal:


http://americymru.ning.com/profiles/blogs/lets-send-laura...

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