Dance of Delight

About us

Where we are
Who we are

Who we are

A passion for music

We are Alison and Mark Harmer, and we started Dance of Delight.com because we wanted to help people enjoy making music - out of a deeply-held belief that music is not something just to enjoy passively but something that everyone could actively "do". Dance of Delight is the site for our online music business, and there's a musical thread through most of our activities: we are professionally involved in music education, live and recorded performance, organisation consulting, audio and video recording and editing, and musical composition.

Alison

I've played and studied the violin all my adult life, and I also run music workshops for preschoolers and adults. . Currently I'm creating some DVD material for Gloucestershire Council, with the aim of sharing good music practice for under-5s; the DVD will be accompanied by a resource book and will be distributing them free. When we are able, Mark and I play as a performing duo as well as taking part in festivals, live music sessions and recordings. In the picture you see me putting a fiddle through its paces in our dedicated stock building.

I spend some of my time repairing violins and setting them up ready for sale - and it's great to see an instrument come back to life, giving someone the possibility of making music on it again! We use Warchal strings for many of our new instrument set-ups.

Mark

I play in a Celtic Band as well as performing as a solo instrumentalist, and I write and record music for the harp. In June 2004 I wrote the music and created continuous live music and sound textures for the Blockley Mystery Plays and took part in the Llangollen International Eisteddfod in the Celtic soloist competition. At Morley Harps and at various other venues, I run occasional harp workshops for groups of players. I have just gained an MSc in Organisation Consulting with Ashridge College, specialising in encouraging groups to compose music as a way of understanding group dynamics and creativity in their organisations. Clients include Sheffield Hallam University, the Royal College of Nursing, Lufthansa and Beiersdorf UK. My main organisational experience was working with the BBC for 23 years as a learning and development consultant, working in radio, TV online production and leadership development. For Dance of Delight I do the main site maintenance and apart from music, I am passionate about customer service.

A music workshop