Editor’s Note: Day 7 of The Selective Echo’s coverage of the Utah Arts Festival features highlights for today’s activities and a focus on Sunday’s Earth Harp performance with the MASS Ensemble. Later today, look for updates on a few fronts including film and artist awards as well as review of the four world premiere musical commissions.

If the attendance at the nightly jam sessions in the Round just near the north entrance of festival with MASS Ensemble members, incorporating the smaller of the two Earth Harps, are any indicator, crowds will pack the Amphitheater Stage grounds tomorrow evening for the highly anticipated ensemble’s tour de force performance featuring the big daddy of the show — the 16-string Earth Harp spanning more than 200 feet. (Photo by John-Paul Jespersen, Salt Lake City photographer, also a participating festival artist.)

And, at the nightly jam sessions, local musicians have responded to the invitation by Bill Close, the group’s artistic director, to bring their instruments and join in the musicmaking.

Installing the harps at the Library were as expected, Close explains, adding that the instrument base is situated higher than usual, some 30 feet high. He also ensured that the strings would not get caught up in the architecture of the library’s sloping eastern wall, which serves effectively as the instrument’s bridge. The big orb bedecked with drums of various sizes and timbres at the center of the Amphitheater Stage will figure significantly in a performance suggesting the effect of continuously shifting time travel.

The larger harp also will be incorporated into a yoga workshop tomorrow (Sunday, June 29) at 9:30 a.m. which is open only to participants who registered in advance. The final performance comes tomorrow evening at 9:30 p.m., following an 8 p.m. performance by the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company on the Amphitheater Stage.

Headliner Highlights for June 28:

On The Amphitheater Stage:

Odyssey Dance Theatre (8 p.m.) — This Utah dance company comprises 24 dancers, who are proficient in all styles of dance, emphasizing world-class bravado, passionate charm, and choreographic invention. The company blends the classical virtues of ballet with the explosive attack of jazz; the freedom of modern dance; the raw energy of hip-hop; the syncopated rhythms of tap; the fluid partnering of ballroom; and the spirit of Broadway and Vaudeville to create a fresh dance vocabulary and entertainment genre that engages audiences at home and on tour. The company has carved a unique niche in the national and international dancescape and has, in fact, created a whole, new market for dance.

Javier Garcia (9:45 p.m.) — A man of many roles, he’s a composer, arranger, producer, guitarist, percussion player, and gifted singer. He incorporates a diverse range of idioms and genres, including rock, hip-hop, ska, calypso, funk, reggae, and tropical rhythms, creating a plush, warm pop sound with uplifting lyrics.

Visit here for details on other stage venue highlights.

The Wasatch IronPen Competition continues today with contestants submitting their literary work later today for judging. Winning entries will be read tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. at the Big Mouth Cafe. The competition is a 24-hour traditional slam event.

And … the City Library Auditorium continues screenings of Fear No Film entries, along with a 4 p.m. chamber music concert, featuring the world premiere of Keeril Makan’s Mercury Songbirds.