About Frances

Frances M Thiele BA(Hons), PhD(History), FMusicolASMC, Dip.Ed.(Secondary).

Frances Thiele is a genuine and approachable harp player and performer who merges a wealth of historical knowledge with an innate understanding of her instrument. She began studying the harp at age nine and it has remained a lifelong vocation. She has performed extensively at music festivals and other events in Australia and played with larger classical ensembles such as the Adelaide Youth Orchestra, Melbourne City Opera Company, Bendigo Orchestra and the Melbourne Harp Ensemble. Frances is a dedicated teacher with a private harp studio in Macedon, Victoria. She gives regular workshops to local harp groups and runs several student and adult ensembles. She has been actively involved in the Australian harp community as a long term committee member of the Harp Society of Victoria, whose website she continues to maintain, and was Academic Coordinator and a member of the Organizing Committee for the World Harp Congress Sydney 2014.

With high-level training in both double-action pedal and lever harp playing, Frances is a vocal advocate for the development of a separate lever harp teaching and technique pathway. With this in mind, she is constantly composing, arranging and transcribing works for lever harp to develop the available repertoire. In addition to being a musician and harp teacher, Frances is an award-winning historian with a PhD in British History from the University of Adelaide. She is a Fellow of the Australian Society of Musicology and Composition and a published author.

References to some of her music history research is available on the website academia.edu.