Welcome to ibacus - International Harp Courses in the UK

CHARLOTTE SEALE, Director Hon ARAM, ARCM, Premier Prix (Distinction)

IMOGEN BARFORD, Co-Director MA(Cantab.), DipRAM, LRAM, ARAM

Professor of Harp at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama,
Royal Academy of Music, the Purcell School,
and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.

Head of Harp at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.

Charlotte Seale is the only British harpist to have been awarded the Premier Prix with Distinction from the Conservatoire Royale de Bruxelles, where she studied under Mireille Flour. Prior to this she studied with Tina Bonifacio, and afterwards with Edward Witsenburg in The Hague.

She is currently Professor of Harp at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama (Senior and Junior departments), the Royal Academy of Music, the Purcell School, and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. At the age of 23, she became Principal Harpist with the BBC Northern Radio Orchestra, where she stayed for 8 years, during which she also played regularly with the Halle Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. She now free-lances in London, and during her busy career has worked with all the main London orchestras, including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, English National Opera, the London Symphony Orchestra, and the Philharmonia Orchestra. She has made countless concert appearances both nationally and internationally, and recorded for all the major record labels.

Charlotte is regularly invited to serve on juries and as an adjudicator and examiner, and has recently been made an Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. She enjoys an international reputation as a renowned teacher and leading exponent of French technique. Charlotte is the Director of the Ibacus Harp Course UK, which she founded in 1988.

Imogen Barford's busy free-lance career has covered an extremely wide range of activities: concerto soloist at the South Bank and Wigmore Hall, London, and at the Aldeburgh Festival; orchestral work with all the major London orchestras (the Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, London Symphony, BBC Symphony, London Philharmonic, and English Chamber Orchestras) as well as opera (including English National Opera, and Glyndebourne), ballet (including English National Ballet and Ballet Rambert) and film work; extensive chamber music with her own group JEUX and the Endymion Ensemble; contemporary music (Lontano and the London Sinfonietta) and early music on original instruments; plus regular appearances in all the major concert halls, radio and TV broadcasts, recordings and foreign tours.

Imogen read Music at Cambridge University and studied the harp with Renata Scheffel-Stein (a pupil of Marcel Tournier in Paris). She continued her studies at the Royal Academy of Music where she won the coveted recital diploma. She won numerous prizes and scholarships for her solo playing, including the International Music Service Prize at the International Harp Competition on the Isle of Man. She has performed as a soloist at World Harp Congresses in Holland and Israel, and was a prizewinner in the National Federation of Music Societies' Award.

From 1991-2005 she taught at Trinity College of Music, London, latterly as Head of Harp. As well as her current work at the Senior Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Imogen also teaches at the Guildhall Junior department. She has given masterclasses and workshops at the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, the Royal College of Music, the Birmingham Conservatoire and the Purcell School for Young Musicians, as well as at the Espace Camac in Paris, the Szymanowski Akademie in Poland, and the Guernsey Harp Festival. She is also in demand as an adjudicator and examiner. In 1994 she was made an honorary associate of the Royal Academy of Music 'for distinguished service to the music profession'. She is Co-Director of the Ibacus Harp Course UK.