HARPTALLICA Talks About Performing METALLICA Songs Classically
May 20, 2008Cathalena E. Burch of the Arizona Daily Star recently conducted an interview with the clasically trained harp duo HARPTALLICA, which performs a series of arrangements based on the music of METALLICA.
"Some of the songs, like 'The Unforgiven', were really easy, but 'Master of Puppets' was hard to do," said Ashley Toman, who arranges the METALLICA songs for double harps. "Some of the songs and the guitar solos we have to take some liberties with."
Toman conceived the idea for HARPTALLICA in 2006. She was inspired by her husband, Ben Toman, fellow musician-turned-tour-manager/roadie and a big METALLICA fan.
"At first it sounds like a guitar when it first opened up. But then it sounded like harp after that," Ben Toman said of his wife's arrangements as he steered them to Spokane.
Toman, who lives in Louisiana, roped in Patricia Kline, a former classmate from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester (N.Y.). She was game; she was tooling around her hometown in Massachusetts doing a bit of orchestra work, some teaching and picking up private gigs, including weddings.
"She needed a second harpist, and I just love to do anything that exposed" the harp to bigger audiences, Kline said.
Read the entire article at Arizona Daily Star.
Video footage of one of HARPTALLICA's fall 2007 performances can be viewed below.
"Fade to Black":
"Welcome Home (Sanitarium)":
Prev 
Comments Disclaimer And Information