Véronique Couturier plays the harp according to the technique developed by the great harpist Marcel Grandjany. Her Conservatory professor, Dorothy Weldon Masella, taught her the technique, which she herself had learnt from Grandjany and Manon Le Comte.
Here is a clip from À propos de la harpe by Odette Le Dentu (p.88):
Marcel Grandjany was born in Paris (France) in 1891 and died in New York (USA) in 1975.
A student of Henriette Renié, Grandjany won the Premier Prix de harpe at the age of 14, in 1905, after studying under Hasselmans at the Paris Conservatory. He was also the Prix d’harmonie laureate in 1909. He was later entered in the Prix de Rome Competition, but had to abandon for health reasons. Titular organist at Saint-Pierre de Montmartre Church in Paris, he was a great improviser.
He founded the Quintette Instrumental de Paris with flautist René Le Roy. Soloist and a composer, he also adapted classical works.
He taught at the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau.
In 1938 he was appointed head of the Harp Department at the world renowned Juilliard School of Music in New York. In 1943 he opened a harp school in Montreal. A Marcel Grandjany scholarship was established in his honour.
He composed many works and transcribed many classical and modern pieces as well. He also adapted Haendel’s Concerto in Si b, enlivening it with an important cadenza.
A prize was created in the Unites States in Marcel Grandjany’s memory . . .
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