Harp

Attaining a professional career as a violinist or pianist is daunting enough, but the chances of becoming a successful harpist are infinitesimal -unless you're a bushy-haired Marx brother. So Philadelphia-born Ann Hobson Pilot is an example of talent triumphing over odds. She's been harpist in the Boston Symphony since 1969 (first chair since 1980) and happens to be the first black woman to hold a principal position in any major American orchestra. She'll be back home this weekend for two concerts with the enterprising contemporary music ensemble Orchestra 2001.

Ned Rorem asks for some unreasonable things in his Book of Hours (1975). Harpist Marilyn Costello and flutist Jeffrey Khaner had the good sense not to follow his instructions to the letter in their performance of the eight- movement work Sunday afternoon at the Curtis Institute of Music. In the last movement, "Nightfall," Rorem's score asks for music that is "almost motionless, almost inaudible" - and who wants to listen to music like that? It starts out with an impossibly soft dynamic, tells the players to get softer, and then, at the very end, asks them to fade away.

Flutist Carol Wincenc and harpist Nancy Allen emphasized the theatrical and the dramatic at Haverford College last night in a concert that let them show off their strengths as soloists and as a pair of musically sensitive colleagues. Virtuoso solos - Faure's Impromptu (Op. 86) for harp; Debussy's Syrinx for flute - were scattered among duets such as Bartok's Rumanian Folk Dances. Yet at the heart of the informal and feisty program was a musical and meditative piece - George Rochberg's Slow Fires of Autumn, written in memory of his son and inspired by a trip to Japan.

HOUSTON - Former President George H.W. Bush's family sought privacy and provided no new details Thursday about his medical condition, a day after his spokesman said that he's in intensive care after being hospitalized for treatment of a bronchitis-related cough. In the first upbeat statement in days, Bush's longtime Houston chief of staff, Jean Becker, said that the former president is getting excellent medical treatment in Houston and that he would ask that people "put the harps back in the closet.

With nimble fingers dancing across harp strings, Ellen Tepper guides her listeners on a musical odyssey that wends through five centuries. Ancient Irish harp tunes, Scottish lute and Baroque music, medieval melodies, Renaissance dance numbers and transcriptions by Bach are all included in the repertoire Tepper will play from during a solo Celtic harp concert tomorrow night in the courtyard at Bright Spirits Artisans' Gallery. The performance is part of the Skippack Under the Stars performing arts series.

The two golden harps in the thicket of the orchestra add a celestial shimmer to the sound, an accent of majesty and grace. This weekend, the Philadelphia Orchestra's principal harpist, Elizabeth Hainen, brings her gilded instrument center stage, offering her first solo concerto in a subscription program. She's playing the Harp Concerto by British-born Elias Parish Alvars (1808-1849), famed not only for his virtuosity but for virtually inventing the effects possible on the then-new pedal harp.

Harp seals, which tend to be found from the Arctic to southeast Atlantic Coast of Canada, are venturing more and more to the waters of New Jersey and other East Coast states, and a federal agency is warning residents to stay away from the animals. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that so far this year the most southerly reported sightings have occurred off North Carolina, "In the spring, the Western North Atlantic harp seal population migrates to the waters around Newfoundland and Gulf of St. Lawrence to give birth to their young on pack ice," said Gordon Waring, head of the seal program at NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Mass.

It's a wonder how nimble-fingered Jay Ansill makes such elegant art from such simple materials. The cover of his brand-new Flying Fish album "Origami" displays Ansill's knack for turning a single, flat piece of paper into a nifty sculptural representation. The paper miniatures include a harp player, a fiddler, a guitar picker, a cellist and a pianist - all clues to the sounds that lie within. Now 28, the Philadelphia-born-and-bred Ansill has been practicing the Japanese art of origami paper folding since second grade, he says, and playing almost as long.

My friend Ron begged me not to tell you about McNally's Tavern because, as he put it, "Then everyone would know about it and that would spoil things. " I thanked Ron for the implicit compliment, but reminded him that people outside of Chestnut Hill have a right to know about McNally's, too. On the surface, neighborhood taverns and Chestnut Hill would seem as odd a combo as espadrilles and Fishtown. But Chestnut Hill has two good ones, Campbell's and McNally's. Today we'll sample McNally's.

Last week, we directed you south to Argentina to see the penguins. This week, we have a northern trip to visit another cold-climate animal that everybody loves: the baby harp seal. Now that Canadian hunters are no longer clubbing the cuddly seals into fur coats, the way is clear for travelers to pet the pups. And the International Fund for Animal Welfare is trying to replace the fur industry on Prince Edward Island with a winter tourist industry so that the clubbing will never resume.