Special Guests

Paul Baker

Paul Baker grew up in Seattle, Washington where he played harp, piano and pipe organ in many churches and concert halls.

He has continued his sacred music performances in the Los Angeles area where he is currently on the staff of two churches and regularly plays weekly services and concerts featuring all harp music.

Twice a prizewinner in the International Pop and Jazz Harp Competition, he has published 20 solo harp arrangements of American standard songs. The group Pastiche premiered his arrangements for flute, harp and voice, “A Gershwin Sampler,” and “Seven Popular Spanish Songs” at Carnegie Hall.

His interest in the Celtic harp has inspired three CDs: “The Tranquil Harp,” “The Ladder of the Soul,” and “The Quiet Path” which won “Best New Age Album” and “Best New Age Song” in the 8th annual Independent Music Awards.

Rhett Barnwell

Rhett Barnwell is a composer, arranger and performer, and the founder of Seraphim Music, which publishes sacred, classical and meditative music for lever and pedal harp. He has concertized extensively in the United States and in Rome, Venice, and Florence, Italy, and Ireland. A specialist in classical and sacred music for the lever harp, he has been in demand as a presenter and performer at conferences such as the Southeastern Harp Conference, Somerset Folk Harp Festival, Harp Journeys, Beginning in the Middle, Harp Gathering and others. He has organized biannual Liturgical Harp Conferences since 2007. He has given workshops and concerts for American Harp Society Chapters in Washington, D. C., Minneapolis, Nashville and New Orleans, and was a performer and presenter at the 2016 AHS National Conference and the 2017 AHS Summer Institute. Mr. Barnwell earned a Master of Music degree from St. Louis Conservatory and did post-graduate Doctoral study at the University of Georgia. He has studied with Mary Brigid Roman, Sunita Staneslow, Ellen Foster, Kelly Stewart, and Monica Hargrave. In addition to the harp, he also plays the cello, French horn, and organ, and has performed with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica de Tenerife, AIMS Festival Orchestra in Austria, South Carolina Philharmonic, Charleston Symphony, and other orchestras. He has served as a Director of Music and Organist for churches in the Southeastern U. S. since 1983.

Laura Logan Brandenburg

Laura Logan Brandenburg, DMA, served as Harp Instructor on the Texas Christian University School of Music faculty from 2001-2020. She is founder, director and member of the Octavia Harp Ensemble, performing in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and beyond for more than 25 years. A highly regarded freelance harpist, Laura has been a frequent sub with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra since 1990 and has most recently served as Principal Harp with the Lewisville Lake Symphony. She held the position of Principal Harp with the Richardson Symphony Orchestra from 1990 – 2010 as well as Principal Harp in the Oklahoma City Philharmonic from 1995 - 1997. Laura enjoys performing with Cindy Horstman and Kimberly DeRosa as The Dallas Jazz Harp Ensemble, presenting concerts and educational programs of original tunes and jazz standards arranged for harp trio. Other recent adventures on harp include collaborating with Jeff Walters as The Logan/Walters Harp Duo, performing all original transcriptions and arrangements for two harps. She has been honored to serve in various positions on the American Harp Society Board of Directors, and she is currently on the Board of Directors of the Harp in Worship Conference. Laura is married to Allen Brandenburg, R.N., who retired from the VA Hospital after 28 years. She considers her greatest life’s work to be her two sons, Ethan and Luke, who fell asleep to the sound of harp music every night and never once complained.

Greg Buchanan

Greg Buchanan is a world-class harpist whose aggressive style of playing redefines the listener’s concept of harp performance. His ministry has been a mainstay in American churches for many years. Greg’s innovative style draws the listener into the very presence of our Lord, from tender worship to foot tapping, hand clapping, jazz-styled praise. His love for the Lord and his appreciation of his deliverance from many years of addiction to drugs, alcohol, and the occult give him a genuine love for others that is expressed powerfully through his ministry. Greg presents a heartfelt testimony to which today’s hurting people can truly relate. He has multiple recordings to his credit and has appeared at many major conferences, conventions, churches, and Christian colleges.
He has been married to his wife Becky, for more than 25 years, and they have three children, Matthew, Erik and Bree.
http://gregbuchananministries.org/

Robbin Gordon-Cartier

Robbin Gordon-Cartier is a teacher in the East Orange School District where she directs the harp program that she originally created for the Elizabeth School District. She is President of the North Jersey Chapter of the American Harp Society and has served on the national level as 2nd Vice-President and Director at Large. Robbin continues to be a sought-after presenter of workshops across the country.

Mrs. Gordon-Cartier maintains a private studio where she teaches students of all ages and regularly freelances in the New York metropolitan area. Performance credits include appearances at Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York City; the New Jersey Performing Arts Center; the Pablo Casals Music Festival in San Juan, Puerto Rico and the National Symphony Orchestra of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Mrs. Gordon-Cartier has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Music Education and a Master's in Harp Performance from Montclair State University. As a young harpist, she spent summers in Dublin, Ireland studying at the Royal Irish Academy. She has been a recipient of numerous educational grants and awards. Robbin has received the
NAACP Educator Award, the National Action Network Fannie Lou Hamer Award for outstanding contributions and active involvement in the community.

Along with her teaching and performances Robbin describes herself, “I’m a church girl...I love the scriptures – and there is so much music in them. Music and scriptures inspire me.”

Ellie Choate

Ellie Choate’s musical versatility has afforded her the opportunity to touch virtually every area of music making. She is as likely to be found in the opera or symphony orchestra as on stage with show orchestras backing headline artists. She has worked “behind the scenes” on the musical scores of many major motion pictures and recordings, but has also appeared on camera for movies and television shows. She is an active soloist and chamber musician, playing for events and concerts all around Southern California.

Throughout her childhood, Ellie’s family was actively involved in their church, where she directed children’s choirs and handbell choirs as a teen and young adult. While still in college, her minister asked her to provide improvised harp accompaniment to a sermon he intended to deliver, opening a door to a new musical experience “off the page”. While not the focus of her early piano and harp studies, arranging and improvisation have become a central part of her career. Her solo harp CDs feature her arrangements of pop and jazz tunes, and she has published arrangements of Chanukah and Hymn tunes for harp ensemble.

In addition to her private studio, Ellie is on the applied music faculty at UC Irvine, CSU Fullerton, and California Baptist University. She was the chair for the 2005 AHS Summer Institute at USC and has done workshops on arranging, rhythm and pedagogy for the Los Angeles and Dallas chapters of the American Harp Society.

For more about Ellie Choate.

Cindy Horstman

Cindy Horstman has been performing, recording, writing, and arranging for the past four decades. Classically trained, she is the first recipient of a Master of Music degree in harp performance from the University of Texas at Austin and a prize winner in the Lyon & Healy International Jazz Harp Competition.

Cindy co-founded the jazz duo, “2tone”, with bassist Michael Medina, the producer of 2tone's 10 CDs. 2tone has toured nationally for 25 years and their recordings have received critical acclaim on Amazon.com and CD Baby. Horstman’s jazz theory workbook for harpists and her jazz-oriented arrangements and award-winning compositions for harp ensembles are very popular with harpists both nationally and internationally, becoming best sellers on the Harp Column Music website.

For the past 10 years, Cindy has enjoyed being the Music Director for Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Dallas, Texas where she leads the congregation in singing hymns and liturgy for weekly worship services and creates her own sacred arrangements for the harp to complement
each service.

Cindy is also the founder, director, composer, and arranger of The Dallas Jazz Harp Ensemble and the 13 member Brookhaven College Harp Ensemble in Dallas, Texas. In both ensembles, she emphasizes arranging and improvising within the jazz idiom.

Elaine Pack Litster

Elaine Pack Litster performs and freelances through Southern California. Elaine began her harp studies at age 12 and progressed in her studies by being frequently asked to play her harp in church. The oldest of 13, every child learned to play the piano, and all the girls learned to play the harp. Frequently 6 sisters and mom (Shari Pack) would play the harp together. Favorite performances have been their annual concert as part of the Christmas at the LA Temple series.

She is the principal harpist of Channel Island Chamber Orchestra. Other orchestras have included the Bakersfield Symphony, Westlake Symphony, Los Angeles Repertory Orchestra and others. She is a part of Witness Music and has performed “Lamb of God” the past four Easter seasons. For many years she has played the organ for church services.

This past year marked the 21st anniversary of Harp Extravaganza. She organizes and leads a group of harpists that “spontaneously” perform Christmas carols at the Huntington Hospital in Pasadena. Often there are over 25 harpists participating. Elaine’s solo album has been well received and she has collaborated with multiple recording projects. She is currently serving as the Treasurer of the American Harp Society, with 3000 members. Elaine holds a Bachelor's degree from BYU, and Master's from UCLA.

Bonnie Mohr

Bonnie Mohr earned a Master's in Music: Harp Performance from Azusa Pacific University where she taught harp. She has worked as a professional harpist in the Los Angeles Area for more than 30 years. Bonnie has performed internationally in Japan and Germany. She received her Certification as a Therapeutic Harpist through Compassionate Harps and works at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena. Bonnie is the chairperson of The Harp in Worship Conference. Her publications, Colorful Adventures on the Harp, Mohr Adventures Book II and Colorful Christmas Carols are a popular teaching series. Harp recordings include: Song in the Night, Around the Christmas Tree, and Pearl.

For more about Bonnie Mohr visit:
http://harpsongmusic.com/

Mary Stevens

Mary Stevens, Certified Clinical Musician, is the owner and program director for Harp for Healing, LLC. A life-long musician, she has served as a church and community musician for more than forty years in Havre, Montana, where she resides with her husband Rick.

After basic instruction on the piano as a child, she taught herself to play the organ, harp, guitar, flute, marimba, and various other instruments in answer to the call to music ministry. She focuses her time now on harp, organ, and piano.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, she posted daily spontaneous hymn tune improvisations on YouTube and Facebook. Several of those improvisations have been written out as hymn arrangements and are available for purchase through Harp for Healing. Harp for Healing offers the Clinical Musician Certification Program (CMCP), a training program for therapeutic musicians.

Website - Harp For Healing
Musical Meditations on Hymns and Scriptures

Anna Vorhes

Anna Vorhes teaches harp at Augustana College. She is the principal harpist with the Sioux City Symphony and is a member of the South Dakota Symphony. She has performed with numerous community, college and secondary school choirs throughout the region.

Ms. Vorhes spent more than a decade as a South Dakota Arts Council touring artist. She organizes a harp ensemble concert every other year, with 25 to 40 harpists participating. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, with majors in music and psychology and a Master of Music degree in Harp Performance from Dr. Carrol McLaughlin at the University of Arizona.

Pamela Wing

Professional harpist Pamela Wing has more than 45 years
of experience. The harp has been Pamela’s passion since
first hearing the Nutcracker as a child. She began her
musical education with piano lessons at the age of 6 and
then moved on to the harp at the age of 11.

Her passion led her to study at San Francisco State University to study with Marjorie Chauvel. She has performed harp solos in churches, weddings, memorials, funerals and corporate and private events in San Diego, Seattle, and Anaheim. She has also played with the La Jolla Symphony and the Inland Valley Symphony. While living in Scotland for several years, she studied Celtic music.

She performs live worship music in a contemporary setting using unique improvisation skills. This has lead to studio recordings with Terry and Duane Clark on worship albums including Quiet Time, and other contemporary recording projects.

Denise Simmons

Denise Simmons has played the harp as a hobby for many years and loves playing at her church and at nursing homes during the holidays with her husband, Mike.

She has worked in the Audio Visual Department in churches for more than 30 years, and currently serves as the Visual Arts Director at The View Church in Menifee, CA.

Denise has recently earned her AA degree in Theater Arts from Mt San Jacinto College, and will be attending UC Riverside in the fall. She is a current member of the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Harp Society.