The small but melodious mouth harp will be the star of the show as the sixth edition of the World Mouth Harp Festival is all set to kickstart on February 9 at Jungle Dance Cafe, Arambol.
“ This is a completely participant powered festival. Over the years, it has attracted musicians from Siberia, Moscow, Chile, Canada, Germany, France etc who just want to come and see what the festival is all about for themselves,” says Neptune Chapotin, who founded the festival back in 2013.
A mouth harpist himself, Chapotin, who was born and is based in Goa, has been running a shop called World Harps at the Saturday Night Market since 2010 where one can find an array of mouth harps from around the world. “Every year I travel to different places in search of new unique mouth harps. Along with the instrument I also bring back the stories that come with it,” says Chapotin. When he began however, he admits that it was quite difficult to find other mouth harpists or indeed to find people who knew what a mouh harp was. When he did find others, they would get together and jam up. What he realised what that there were a lot of mouth harpists who didn’t know that there were others who played the same instrument too.
“Everyone was living in an isolated bubble,” he says. Chapotin then began thinking of how he could get these mouth harp players together to network and establish a community. In 2012, he co-organised a mouth harp festival and suddenly realised that he did have the experience to make such a festival happen in Goa too. And in early February 2013, the first edition of the World Mouth Harp Festival of India was held at Arambol. “The number of people that showed up each day for the festival far exceeded my expectations and since then we have only been growing and expanding every year,” he says.
In fact, last year two students were sent by the International Harp Museum to talk about the culture of the mouth harp and establish cultural relations.
And there’s a lot to look forward to this year too. “Ãron Szilágyi from Hungary, one of the most acknowledged mouth harp players in the world will be performing this year. I have been trying to get him to come down for quite awhile and finally it is happening!” says Chapotin. Nico Trompe from Chile, who has his own TV show where he promotes mouth harps will also be returning this year for the three day festival.
“The focus is on mouth harp players in India and although it wasn’t planned all our solo mouth harp players this year are from India which is a huge achievement,” says Chapotin. In addition, there will be performances on the hand pan, kathak dances and workshops where participants can learn how to play and master the mouth harp.
“The vision of the festival is to assist in the establishment of the mouth harp as a contemporary instrument in society. Hence, while the festival is open to any musical group performing in any genre, a prequisite is that that they should have atleast one mouth harp player in their line up,” says Chapotin, adding that over the last few editions it has been observed that music groups who have been a part of the festival have since recognised and incorporated the mouth harp in their band.
The Band Scramble is also a core feature of the festival. “Here musicians sign up by putting their name and instrument down on a piece of paper and dropping it into a box. The next day, these are arranged according to the different instruments to form four proper music ensembles. They are given a time duration to practice and come up with their performance,” says Chapotin, who will also be putting up his stall of world harps at the festival venue.
“This festival is completely free. Even the sound system has been coming to us free from Mumbai. However when necessary I am the financial backer as I have a passion for this project. We do keep donation boxes around. If people enjoy the music and would like to contribute they are free to do so,” he says.
