DECATUR - Harp music is to the ears as silk is to the skin, and students at French Academy were enraptured by the instrument on Thursday.

Julia Kay Jamieson, the principal arranger for the HarpCore 4 quartet, harpist with the Millikin-Decatur Symphony Orchestra and a teaching assistant at the University of Illinois, gave performances at South Shores, Garfield Montessori, Mount Zion Intermediate and French Academy on Thursday.

"I was only 6 when I started taking lessons," Jamieson told the students. "I saw someone playing a harp at a wedding and I thought, 'That's so cool, I want to play that.'"

She took lessons for 16 years, she said. Now she holds a master's degree in harp performance from the U of I and makes her living playing the harp.

The first piece she learned as a child, she said, was "Over the Rainbow," and while she can play a much more complicated version now than she could then, she still loves the song and performed it for the kids, who listened in complete silence and burst into enthusiastic applause when she finished. Her repertoire included a little bit of everything, from the first movement of Handel's "Harp Concerto in B Flat Major" to the theme from "The Pink Panther" to a brand-new work, "Song of the Timberland," whose world premiere was Jamieson's performances on Thursday.

The Symphony Guild of Decatur sponsored the performances as part of their desire to expose schoolchildren to music and especially to orchestral instruments.

Symphony conductor Michael Luxner was in attendance at the French Academy performance, and he said research has shown that exposure to music uses the entire brain and improves skills like math and reading, yet children don't get enough of that exposure.

"(Music) is one of the things that always gets cut when schools face (financial) difficulties," Luxner said. "When I was in school, we had instruments and uniforms and we had great budgets and we took trips and now it's wham! Everything is gone."

Some of French's own young musicians were impressed with Jamieson and her instrument, too.

"She said she practices four to six hours a day," marveled Ben Daines, a fifth-grade violinist. "Every day!"

Valerie Wells can be reached at vwells@herald-review.com or 421-7982.