She is a harpist, composer and writer born in Tennessee who is known for her more than 40 years work on the Celtic harp. She started by learning the piano when she was 6 years old, playing as an accompanist to school choirs, before moving to the flute and the guitar and later switching her concentration to the harp when she took further studies in the pedal harp Southern California and earned her Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Redlands. She also took lessons in Los Angeles with Susann McDonald at California State University and during this time switched from the pedal harp to the Celtic harp.
During the second half of the 1970s she performed with Robin Williamson and His Merry Band and toured the United States, Canada, the UK and Europe with them as well as in the recording studio between 1976 and 1979. Also during the 1970s she started to sell harps and published her Teach Yourself to Play the Folk Harp. She has since gone on the published more than 85 books and works for harp on sheet music.
When the 1980s came around she won the All-Ireland Harp Championship in Buncrana, County Donegal in 1980. She returned there to teach for the next two summers and also started performing as a solo musician, touring Europe and North America.
In 1992 she opened her harp store which is though to have been possibly the largest of its kind in the world. In 1999 she was named one of the “45 most Influential Harp Forces of the 20th Century” by The Harp Column magazine.
She has appeared on several American, Irish and English TV and radio broadcasts, including Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion. Her recordings have been played on more than 400 American radio stations and she was a guest on an episode of the TV series Soundboard: The Art of the Plucked String in 1983.
A small selection of the many recordings she has performed on include her own The Harp of Brandiswhiere: A Suite for Celtic Harp and Three Harps for Christmas Volumes 1 and 2 as well as Star Song: Christmas Carols with Panflute and Violin by Valeriu Apan & Miamon Miller, Garden of Mysteries by Ruth Barrett, Messina by Jim Messina, Peace by Audrey Camille Nowak, 24 Carrots by Al Stewart, Timeless Music for the the Celtic Harp by Ellen Tepper, Journey’s Edge, American Stonehenge and A Glint At the Kindling by Robin Williamson & His Merry Band, Beatles on Hammered Dulcimer, Carolan’s Cup and Gifts III (Christmas Music from Around the World) by Joemy Wilson and numerous television and movie soundtracks.
In the new millennium she performed in five concerts in California with the Irish band The Chieftains. She moved to Kauai in Hawaii in 2013 where she has continued with her business and sells her harps through a mail-order business. In 2015 she was the recipient of the Somerset Folk Harp Festival’s “Lifetime Achievement Award” in New Jersey.
In the field of musical education she has given numerous masterclasses and held harp workshops in both Ireland and the United States. She has been a judge at many harp competitions that include in Lorient, France for the Guinness World Trophy for the Celtic Harp Competition. She gives harp lessons online from her harp center in Hawaii.
Joemy Wilson recordings
Furry Day Carol/On Christmas Night (Sussex Carol) (Traditional Cornish/possibly Luke Wadding/Ralph Vaughan Williams)
Dargason Music 10108 (CD: Gifts III (Christmas from Around the World))
Hammered Dulcimer – Joemy Wilson
Flute – Valarie King
Sources:
- https://www.harpcenter.com/category/about-sylvia-woods-2
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Woods_(harpist)
- https://harpcolumn.com/music/all-music/categories/artists/sylvia-woods/
- https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/sylvia-woods-discusses-her-book-teach-yourself-play-folk-harp
- https://www.all-sheetmusic.com/Sheetmusic/Sylvia-Woods-Sheet-Music-for-Harp/
- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Sylvia-Woods/s?rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_27%3ASylvia+Woods
- https://www.allmusic.com/artist/sylvia-woods-mn0000049463#credits
- https://www.discogs.com/artist/674608-Sylvia-Woods