Harpist of the Month of July, Caroline Reyes!

Caroline Reyes is a recent graduate of the Eastman School of Music, where she received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in harp performance, as well as a master’s in ethnomusicology. Besides being a fantastic performer and harp teacher, Caroline is a scholar and an active gamelan musician. 

Feminist Theory and Music Conference this week (Okay, A. Why didn’t I know about this conference and B. Why am I not going??). I’m sure I’m not the only one who would love to read this paper!

Besides being a harpist and musicologist, Caroline is also a teacher. She holds the position of harp professor at Roberts Wesleyan College and is looking to start her own private studio. When I asked her what inspired her passion for teaching, she said, “Actually it’s funny, throughout my undergrad, I thought I never wanted to teach. But then, when I took Professor Bride’s pedagogy course, everything changed. I had this great relationship with my student and he did really well, and I thought oh my gosh, I’m actually pretty good at this!” Ms. Bride (our harp teacher) obviously thought so too, as she recommended Caroline for the job at Roberts Wesleyan after she had graduated with her bachelor’s degree. 

Earlier this summer, Caroline played in the American Harp Society’s National Competition. Although she had never applied before (and had actually never performed for a competition before), she made it into the final round, which is super impressive! I asked her how she prepared herself for the competition. She said she had everything ready a few months before the tape was due so that she had time to polish everything, which she said really helped. This also enabled her to take her time recording, and to make sure that she had really good tapes. When she got to the competition itself, she said, she didn’t do too much playing beforehand, but kept herself relaxed and spent time with her family. “I tried to take it easy, to save my energy!”

I explained to Caroline about my competition misgivings - I don’t really feel myself to be cut out for it, and every time I try for a concerto competition, I play miserably. She answered, “I used to feel the same way. But it was a really great experience, and what it’s good for is pushing yourself to really perfect pieces. I think that, for me at least, I would get things to the point where I was happy with them, but the idea of learning something so well that you can play through it without any mistakes is another level. I think that pushing yourself to that level is just good for you as a musician." 

Some of Caroline’s future plans include starting a private studio, continuing her teaching position at Roberts Wesleyan, and performing for the Rochester Fringe Festival. 

Image Credit: Allie Hartley

Caroline is collaborating with local artist Allie Hartley for the concert, which has a theme of dreams and nightmares. Some of the pieces on the program will be Tournier’s Clair de Lune and Eternal Dreamer, as well as a piece by an Australian composer, called Chamber of Horrors. The concert will be free, so if you’re in the area, you should check it out! Thanks for talking to me, Caroline!

April Harpist of the Month: Kristina Finch!

(First of all let me just say that playing for Street Scene was AMAZING.  It was so much fun and was absolutely the best way to spend my birthday weekend).  

Last Monday, I went to hear harpist Kristina Finch give a lecture recital.  Kristina is a candidate for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree, and the intrepid leader and TA of the Eastman harp studio.  Before becoming a DMA student here, she attended Florida State University for her master’s degree, and was also at Eastman for her bachelor’s.  

First I asked Kristina how she got into the harp.  "I started playing when I was eight years old.  My elementary school music teacher was a harpist.  She chose a group of us - I don’t really know what criteria she used to choose us - but she chose six girls, and sent us home with little sheets to have our parents sign.  I don’t think my parents had any idea what they were getting into, but the school rented a harp and we all shared it… Honestly I don’t remember having a desire, before I was asked, to play the harp.  I don’t know that I even thought of it.“  

About six months after she started, an anonymous donor gave money for the school to buy the harp, and the program grew very quickly from there - Kristina recalls teaching beginning harp lessons to third graders when she herself was only in the fifth grade.  It was then that she began taking private lessons with Barbara Chapman, the principal harpist with the Virginia Symphony.  Barbara was a former student of Ms. Bride, our teacher at Eastman, and it was she who encouraged Kristina to come and study here with her.  Kristina describes the school as "magical.”  

Kristina loves to play chamber music, an interest she says goes back to her years in middle school and high school, when she played duets with her sister, who played the flute.  She currently plays in a harp/saxophone ensemble with her boyfriend, which they call the Mana Duo.  Because harp and sax ensembles are rare, they have built up a repertoire of transcriptions (like Ibert’s Entr'acte and Saint-Saens’ Fantaisie, originally for harp and violin) as well as commissioned works.  Kristina describes him as a brilliant musician and says they work very well together.  "It’s so separate from our personal relationship…. we communicate on a different level when we play together.“  One of their upcoming projects include a recital together at SUNY Fredonia.  This summer they will move together to Florida where, she says, they will continue to play together and build an audience for their group.  

Kristina gave her lecture recital on "Musical Exoticism in the Music of Marcel Tournier.”  In her lecture, she talked about a specific piece by Tournier called “Au Hasard des ondes,” which is rarely performed and, as far as we know, has never been recorded.  She calls the piece a musical tour around the world - it is a long, difficult work of nine movements, each of which depicts a different country (Japan, China, Africa, France, Scandinavia, Romania, and Italy).  In her recital, Kristina talked about the ways that Tournier does this, and told me in our discussion earlier how knowing so much about the piece really helped her in playing it.  I learned so much that I didn’t know about Marcel Tournier - like, for instance, that he taught students from all over the world at the Paris Conservatory.  These students would bring him folk songs and musical traditions from their homeland, which he would then use as inspiration for his music.  It was a fascinating lecture and Kristina’s playing was exquisite!!!

One of Kristina’s long-term goals is to become a harp professor at a university - a job which she feels she is not quite ready for yet.  "My plan is to teach privately for ten years, gig, freelance, hopefully build a pretty significant career wherever I am.  And then in ten, twenty, thirty years, apply for jobs at pretty significant places, and have the kind of experience to be able to give my students everything.“  

I asked Kristina what inspired her to be a teacher.  

"It’s about imparting knowledge.  Giving to others the experiences and the life lessons that you’ve learned - I feel like I have a lot to give, and teaching is such a wonderful outlet for that.  The saying "Those who can’t do, teach” is so wrong and backwards.  I feel like if you’re a musician and you don’t want to teach, you are not in the right field.  So much of what we do is about passing on to the next generation, and that’s something that really excites me.“  

I totally agree.  Thanks for talking to me, Kristina!  

February Harpist of the Month!

So I decided to add a new feature to my blog this month, and it is called - Harpist of the Month!  Each month I will pick a harpist to interview (or beg a harpist to let me interview them) and they will be featured on the blog.  

My first harpist of the month is Ms. Christina Brier!  Christina is a second year master’s student at the Eastman School of Music and will be graduating in May.  

The first thing I asked Christina was, of course, the question all harpists are asked - why the harp??

Christina said, “I played violin.  I started violin in kindergarten.  I played in youth orchestra when I was in third or fourth grade and I saw harps there.  And I thought, I would much rather play that!  So I started asking my parents for a harp, and they said no.  And then I kept seeing harps.  I would see them in symphonies, on tv, in recordings, etc.  And then this random lady in my dad’s choir found out that I wanted to play harp, and she said oh, we have a lever harp that we don’t use, you can use that.  And then they knew this lady who was a harp teacher.”

The rest, as they say, is history.  

With the help of a generous aunt, Christina got her pedal harp when she was twelve.  After graduating high school, she majored in music at the Maranatha Baptist Bible College in Watertown, Wisconsin.  Because she was their first harpist, the school created the harp performance major for her and made her harp teacher, Jeanne Henderson (who was also my harp teacher’s teacher… I think this makes Christina my harp-aunt or something), an adjunct professor.  Christina would travel an hour to her harp teacher’s house on the weekends for lessons and attended studio class with the violinists.  Christina talked about the advantages and disadvantages to being the only harpist at the school.  

Christina:  Advantages are if they want a harp, they use you for everything, and they think the harp is amazing.  Disadvantages are, the program has only about sixty people, so I didn’t get to play that much.  I had to play percussion a bunch.

Me: ????

Christina:  Oh, another little known fact - In 5th through 9th grade I played percussion in band, and I took lessons.  So I can sort of play percussion.  I don’t claim that as any great skill.

Who knew??

I asked Christina if she had played any cool gigs or concerts that really stuck out in her memory, and she said, “Playing Mahler was awesome.”  

We’re definitely agreed on that.  

Christina recently performed her master’s recital and it was spectacular!  The Program included Benjamin Britten’s Suite for Harp, Gabriel Faure’s Une Chatelaine en sa Tour, a duo for two harps (which I played in!) called “Parvis” by Bernard Andres, Saint-Saens’ Fantaisie for harp and violin, and Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro.  When we talked, I asked her to share why she picked the pieces she played.  

Christina:  The Britten I heard for the first time several years ago, and when I heard it I thought, I really want to play this piece.  So that’s always been on my to do list, so when it came time for my recital, that was the first I asked if I could do.  And then Faure - before I started playing the harp, my dad bought me some harp cds.  One of them had the Faure on it, so I’ve always wanted to play that, too.  I also wanted to play duets, and she (Ms. Bride, our harp teacher) said, “How about Parvis?”

So, I definitely learned a few things about Christina - not only does she play the harp, but she has also played the violin, piano, and percussion.  Thanks for talking to me, Christina!