Our Talent
We have assembled musical talent from around the world to provide the best instruction and experience for our participants.
Grace Cloutier
Grace was a quarter finalist at the Israel International Harp Contest (2001) and has performed for audiences across North America, Europe, and the Middle East, regularly performing for the American Harp Society, the World Harp Congress, the Ukrainian National Music Festival, Carnegie Hall, and in Lincoln Center. She co-founded Ukraine’s International Harp Competition (now entitled Glowing Harp), where she served as head juror of a panel comprised of musicians from Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre and continues as a guest artist and consultant. As a chamber musician, Grace performs with David Enlow, Jessica Meyer, Sarah Whitney, Laura Metcalf, Rebecca Ringle Kamarei (of The Metropolitan Opera) and co-founded Etherea Vocal Ensemble with its artistic director Derek Greten-Harrison. She has also appeared with Constantine Orbelian and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, the Calder String Quartet, and many others. A dedicated teacher, Grace regularly gives master classes throughout North America and has held multiple residencies at UCLA and served on the faculty at The University of Texas, The Hartt School, Quinnipiac University, and currently is Head of the Harp Department at Trinity College.
Marta Power
As a member of the Atlantic Harp Duo, which she founded in 2006 with harpist Elizabeth Jaxon, Marta Power performs regularly throughout the world. In parallel to their performing career, the Atlantic Harp Duo helps to expand harp repertoire by authoring a growing number of transcriptions and arrangements for two harps. The duo has commissioned a number of works for two harps (Damien Luce, Stéphan Delplace, Roger Petersen, Caroline Lizotte…) and has recorded several albums, including: A Journey with Chopin & Sand (2010), Rhythms of Spain (2014), and Ariadne Rediviva (2019).
Marta Power is involved in many Parisian orchestras and ensembles, with a particular fondness for chamber music. She performs regularly with the Duo Volubilis (clarinet and harp) and the Schiller-Power Duo (harp and violin). Happy to explore outside the realm of the classical musician, Marta Power has also participated in several original theater productions, such as La Fontaine, ou les animaux pestiférés (Théâtre de Nesle, 2009) and Cyrano de Bergerac, version clownesque (Théâtre des Variétés, 2013-2014).
After nearly ten years on the faculty of the Académie Inter-Musicale de Paris, and over fifteen at the head of a large private teaching studio, Marta Power was appointed professor of harp at the Conservatoire de Saint-Cloud in western Paris in 2021. She is regularly invited to give masterclasses and sit on competition juries all over France and Europe.
View her performance with the Camac concert series “Les Jeudis de la Harpe” from December 9, 2021.
Harpist Ruth Bennett is highly regarded as a versatile and engaging artist having performed throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe and Japan. Born into a musical and artistic family in England, where she began her musical training, she currently resides on Long Island, New York.
Recently appointed (fall 2022) as Assistant Harp Professor at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, she is also Principal Harpist with the Yucatan Symphony Orchestra in Mérida, Mexico since 2007. Maintaining an active schedule between the U.S. and Latin America, she has appeared frequently as soloist, orchestra member and educator throughout Mexico and Peru. She has performed with American Ballet Theater and The Metropolitan Opera and been invited as guest principal harpist with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in the U.K. as well as playing in several on and off Broadway shows.
In 2019, Ruth had the great joy to play with Björk as a member of her Cornucopia ensemble during a tour of Mexico City, Europe and the U.K. She has also been featured in solo and chamber music recitals at Carnegie Hall, Vreedenburg (Holland), Suntory Hall (Japan), Palacio Bellas Artes (Mexico) and the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago.
Ruth won third prize at the 2nd Dutch International Harp Contest where she performed Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez in the final stage with the Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht conducted by Johannes Leertouwer.
A consistent prize winner in other international and national contests, she received 1st prize in the 2009 National Harp Competition in Mexico City and awards at the American Harp Society National Contest.
Ruth began her studies at the piano but was eventually persuaded to learn the harp by her grandmother, her first teacher and former student of Carlos Salzedo. She received her Orchestral Studies Certificate from Manhattan School of Music where she studied with Deborah Hoffman (Metropolitan Opera), a Masters in performance from Eastman School of Music, and a Bachelors from Crane School of Music at S.U.N.Y Potsdam where she was subsequently awarded the Rising Star Award for outstanding alumni achievement. She was a fellow at Aspen and Brevard summer festivals.
A champion of classical and new music from the Americas, Ruth has worked closely with Mexican composers and artists participating in numerous workshops and premieres. Her album Concert d'Aujourd'hui - music for flute and harp, alongside flutist Alejandro Vasquez, is released under the label of Urtext Digital Classics. Ruth maintains an active teaching studio in Long Island for all ages.
Tammam Odeh is a Syrian harpist, guitarist, and composer. He was born in Damascus, Syria. Tammam graduated from the Higher Institute of Music in Damascus in 2018. He is a member of the Syrian Syndicate of Artists, and was a singer in the chamber choir of the Higher Institute of Music. He also took lessons on the harpsichord and the oboe. In 2016 and 2017, he participated in the Yes Academy workshop as a composer and a guitarist in Lebanon.
Tammam played in several concerts at Damascus Opera House and the Syrian conservatory. He taught harp for four years for kids and classical guitar for seven years for all ages. He worked in Muscat, Oman as a guitar and ukulele teacher for two years before moving to the United States.
He is continuing his music studies at Bard College in the Advanced Performance Studies program for graduate students. He is studying harp with Sara Cutler and Bridget Kibbey, composition with Joan Tower, and conducting with James Bagwell.
He has played in two concerts with the Bard conservatory orchestra with maestro Leon Botstien and maestro Thomas Wilkins since the beginning of the fall of 2021.
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