Ruth Maayani

The Israeli harpist Ruth Maayani recorded Ami Maayani's Concertino for harp and string orchestra (1980) with the Tel-Aviv String Nonet in March 1999, for the album The Harp Concerti (Fons Music Foundation / Israel Music Associates, 1999). Nayden Todorov conducted the recording. Maayani was born on 11 October 1948 and died on 18 November 2021. She studied at the Juilliard School with Marcel Grandjany, and was the sister of the composer Ami Maayani (1936-2019), many of whose harp works she gave in first performance. Around the age of forty she joined the newly founded Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion, which became the orchestra of the New Israeli Opera, and was its principal harpist until she retired to teach. For the Sulamot programme of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra she founded a course of harp studies for blind and visually impaired children, and had lever harps built small enough for young pupils, with the red and blue strings set slightly forward so that they could be told apart by touch.