2006 Awardee: Roberta Burn

My harp is so important to me. I spend most of my time when I’m not in school playing it, it’s like a companion

Biography

Roberta comes from a family of dedicated young musicians who between them play harp, piano, euphonium, Northumbrian smallpipes, piano accordion, trumpet and clarinet. Roberta, the youngest, aspires to become a concert harpist.

Currently, she is a pupil at St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh which has overseen the early musical education of many of Scotland’s finest musicians. When she auditioned for St Mary’s she impressed the adjudicators with her sense of poetry and magic, as well as technical ability. Roberta stood out as being one of the most talented harpists of her age.

From Berwick on Tweed, Roberta lives and breathes the harp. Her current teacher has seen her make enormous progress in her musicality and technique, the result of a great deal of time and effort spent in improving her technique.

How the Award Helped

The Dewar Arts Awards helped to buy Roberta a performance standard harp.

Since the Award

Roberta writes that having a new pedal harp has opened up ‘many fantastic opportunities’. Shortly afterwards she passed Grade 7 on pedal harp with distinction, took a master class with internationally-renowned harpist, Isabelle Perrin, and was accepted into the National Children’s Orchestra of Scotland. In 2008 Roberta became the Berwick Rotary Classical Musician of the year.

My harp is so important to me. I spend most of my time when I’m not in school playing it, it’s like a companion