About
Participants in the Round Rock ISD Harp Ensemble Festival learn fun music, meet other harp students, and perform in a small and large harp ensembles under the direction of professional harpists Sarah Ladd, Carly Nelson, and Kela Walton. Students who live within the Round Rock ISD boundary, and take private harp lessons are eligible to participate in the Round Rock ISD Harp Ensemble Festival. Applicants are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis and there is no audition required.
This annual festival was co-founded in 2010 by Jacquelyn Venter and Kela Walton. The festival’s mission is to provide students with the opportunity to perform with their fellow harp students and learn from a variety of harp teachers. Harp students spend so much of their time practicing and playing as individuals, thus the opportunity to learn from and perform with other harpists is highly beneficial. Younger students are inspired by the older students, and older students rise to the challenge of being role models and leaders.
Students meet to rehearse and learn about all aspects of the harp, and the RRISD Harp Ensemble Festival culminates with a free concert. The 2017 festival featured over 35 harp students, and many students return every year to perform with the festival because “It’s fun!”
Sarah Oliver Ladd, Co-Director
Sarah Ladd moved to the Austin area and joined the RRISD harp faculty in 2014. She began her study of the harp at the age of eight in Michigan with Ruth Myers. Sarah won top awards in two national competitions in 2005, including the Advanced Division of the American Harp Society’s National Competition. From 2008-2013 Sarah was the principal harpist for both the Baton Rouge and Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestras. Her other orchestra credits include engagements with the Austin Symphony Orchestra as well as appearances with major orchestras in the North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Passionate about the proper promotion of music, Ms. Ladd has taught harp, piano, theory, chamber music, ear training, and music history since 2003. At the collegiate level, she was privileged to serve as adjunct faculty for one year at Stephen F. Austin University and for three years at Sam Houston State University.
After completing a Bachelors of Music degree at Oberlin Conservatory under the instruction of the world-renowned soloist Yolanda Kondonassis, Ms. Ladd went on to earn a Master of Music degree with long-time Houston Symphony member Paula Page and the Univeristy of Houston Moores School of Music. www.austinharplessons.com
Carly Nelson, Co-Director
A native of Dallas Texas, Carly Nelson is a freelance harpist who joined the RRISD harp faculty in 2015. She began her study of harp at the age of 10 in Dallas after spending eight years overseas in Indonesia and England. Before leaving for her last two years of high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, Ms. Nelson was Principal harpist of the Philharmonic Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra. Ms. Nelson has performed with several professional orchestras including the Baton Rouge, Lansing, Temple, and Victoria Symphonies as well as the Austin Opera. She has been invited to perform at numerous prestigious summer festivals, and she was a finalist in the American Harp Society Foundation’s Anne Adams Awards competition. She spent some time in the summer of 2015 performing as the Resident Harpist at the illustrious Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. A teacher as well as a performer, she has worked as a Harp Teaching Assistant at the Interlochen Arts Camp for the last two summers.
Carly Nelson graduated in 2015 with her Specialist in Harp Performance from the University of Michigan where she studied with Joan Raeburn Holland. She received her Master’s Degree from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University studying with Paula Page, and her Bachelor’s Degree in Harp Performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio in 2011.
Lydia Villarreal, Instructor
Lydia Villarreal is currently pursuing her masters degree in harp performance under Delaine Leonard at the University of Texas at Austin. She also received her Bachelor of Music in Music Studies with a minor in Mechanical Engineering from UT Austin. Throughout her undergraduate and graduate studies Lydia has performed with the UT Wind Ensemble, Wind Symphony, Symphony Band, UT Symphony Orchestra, University Orchestra, Mariachi, and Harp Ensemble. This past summer Lydia traveled to Austria where she performed with the World Youth Wind Orchestra and the World Adult Wind Orchestra. Lydia is a certified music teacher in Texas and a registered Suzuki teacher. During her classroom teacher certification process, Lydia student taught at Chisholm Trail Middle School and Round Rock High School. She currently helps with the orchestra and harp programs at schools in the Austin and Round Rock Independent School Districts.
Lydia is passionate about music and the effect it has on others. This drove her to volunteer at her church and aid with projects and the Center For Music Therapy in Austin. Lydia is the harpist for the Movement Tracks Project, which is a collaboration between therapists and musicians to create new methods in music compositions and recording, utilizing brain-based music technology to help people walk again. Lydia will graduate in May 2018 and plans to teach middle school orchestra and grow a harp program at her future school.
Kela Walton, Co-Founder
Kela Walton has maintained a private harp teaching studio since 1998, and became one of the first teachers in the RRISD harp program when it began in 2009. In the spring of 2010 she co-founded the RRISD Harp Ensemble Festival with Jacquelyn Venter, and she looks forward to working with the students in ensemble every year! In the summer of 2014 Kela relocated to Buffalo, NY where she is the Harp Instructor and the Early Childhood Education program director at Buffalo Suzuki Strings. Her students have won top honors in competitions as well as positions in the TMEA All-State Symphony Orchestra. As a harp clinician, Kela directed the 2009 All-City Harp Ensemble in Odessa, TX, and co-directed the Youth Ensemble at the 2016 American Harp Society’s 42nd National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. She currently performs as the substitute Principal Harp with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, a temporary appointment from January through June of the 2017-18 season. Other Highlights from her performing career include appearances with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, Austin Symphony Orchestra, and Buffalo Chamber Players. In addition to the Round Rock ISD harp program, Kela was privileged to serve as harp faculty member previously at Temple College, the University of Houston Moores School of Music Preparatory and Continuing Studies program, Longhorn Music Camp, and Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan.
Kela Walton holds a Master of Music in Harp Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Houston Moores School of Music where she studied with Paula Page, and a Bachelor of Music in Harp Performance from the University of Texas at Austin where she studied with Gayle Barrington. Her Suzuki training includes coursework in early childhood education and harp with Sharon Jones, Dr. Laurie Scott, and Delaine Leonard. Kela is also certified in Dharma Yoga at the 300 hour level, and is an alumnus of the Salzedo School in Camden, Maine where she studied upon invitation with Alice Chalifoux.