Cherubim Young Musician Liliia Konstantinova performs Ten past two + Harpicide at Midnight by Pearl Chertok 1918-1981. Recorded at a Savile Club Aperitif Concert on Fri 3 May. Liliia is the awardee of Cherubim's 'XXth Anniversary' Salvi, but she performs here on the unique 'royal ebony' Salvi, hand-crafted for her teacher Professor Gabriella Dall’Olio.
Pearl Chertok was a flamboyant successful American harpist, who lived in exciting New York when the jazz scene was becoming more and more prominent, to include also a newbie in their scene, the harp. A few harpists started toiling around jazz chords and some became extraordinary jazz harpists, such as Dorothy Ashby. Pearl wrote this "Around the Clock Suite” in the 1950s while working as a soloist, as principal harp for CBS tv orchestra. The idiomatic writing takes advantage of extended harp techniques - pedal slides, finger nails, natural and fingernails glissandos, knocks on soundboards, imitating not just jazz idioms, but traditional jazz instruments as well. Imagine you are hearing a drumkit and a double bass pizz and slap in the lower registers, and a sax or higher voice at the top-with-of course!- with a harp always glittering about!.
Cherubim Music Trust is a charity that loans professional-calibre orchestral instruments to advanced music students in the UK, aged 15-25, who cannot afford one that matches their ability. See cherubimtrust.org/