Mikaela Davis @ Rockwood Music Hall

Tonight I had the chance to see my good friend Mikaela Davis play at Rockwood Music Hall, which is in the Lower East Side. I didn’t know this, but my roommate says it’s hard to get a gig there, so - go Mikaela!

Although Mikaela usually plays with her bandmates, Alex and Cian, this was a solo show. I love hearing the full band, but this gave me a chance to hear what she is doing with the harp parts for some of her newer songs. The last time I talked to Mikaela, she told me how her harp writing was being influenced by the classical composers she plays in school. This did not become completely obvious to me until I heard one of her new songs, called “Fortune Teller.” Much of the harp part is made up of downward arpeggios, with the top note acting as the melody - pure Marcel Tournier. And in another song (I can’t remember which) there was a section of glissandos that sounded very much like Carlos Salzedo's Scintillation. It could be just my imagination, but it seemed to me like Mikaela’s songs are getting more complex, both in terms of how involved &difficult the harp parts are and in terms of the harmonies. In a world of pop music where every thing is I-V-I, it was definitely a breath of fresh air. 

Another thing that has changed since I last heard Mikaela play a solo show is that she has added an effects pedal (pedals? I couldn’t tell). Obviously we’ve all heard this used on electric guitar, but I don’t think I’d ever heard it used on pedal harp before, and sounded very cool. Though when I first realized she was using this all I could think was, “Really, Mikaela? The harp already HAS seven pedals. Was that not difficult enough for you?!” But she seemed to manage the extra footwork without a problem. 

Mikaela is currently fundraising for her EP “Fortune Teller,” which will be released in January of 2014. Please consider donating (HERE), there are lots of great goodies if you do! Mikaela, Alex, and Cian are also going to be touring for the month of January to promote the new EP, so you can look up their tour dates on her Facebook page or on her website, mikaeladavis.com. 

Lovely to see you and hear you again, Mikaela!

The Epic Harp Migration of Christmas '13

I just finished moving two harps for my first (and so far, only) holiday gig, and let me tell you, that was no joke. Mannes will move harps for the college division orchestra, but apparently not for the extension division, so that became my happy task. It took me four+ hours - two hours there, and at least two hours back - for a concert that was no more than an hour and a half long. 

Don’t get me wrong, it was a fun concert. I played the Waltz of the Flowers and we sang nondenominational winter carols. And I had a much more pleasant experience than the first time I drove a harp downtown (I listened to music, talked to another harpist, and no one leaned out of their cars to scream misogynist slurs at me). But still. Four hours. Driving up and down Manhattan.

Being a harpist is sometimes silly.

I will now reward myself with foods that are orange. Orange juice, macaroni and cheese, and pumpkin ice cream.

Did I Mention I Like Britten?

A couple of weeks ago I went to yet another concert featuring the music of Benjamin Britten sung by the tenor Nicholas Phan, the same singer I heard in my first concert in New York City. This time, he was accompanied by a pianist, a horn player, and a harpist by the name of Sivan Magen. Sivan Magen is sort of a superstar - as I explained to my nonmusician friend whom I dragged along, in the harp world, he is a BIG DEAL. Several years ago he was the first Israeli to win the international harp competition in Israel. Now, after hearing him play, I get why. Not only did his performance sound completely flawless, but watching him play is fascinating. He is so poised, and his movements just look totally controlled and precise. 

Nicholas Phan &friends performed music from his latest Britten album (which I obviously had to get), “Still Falls the Rain.” This included several folk songs (which are some of my favorites), Canticle V: The Death of Saint Narcissus (which is weird, but cool), and also Canticle III: Still Falls the Rain, which I had never heard before, and is a beautiful piece. 

Can I just mention how much I LOVE when a performer can talk casually to the audience during their concert? I just think it makes the performance so much more personal and enjoyable. It always makes me feel like the performer really cares about what they’re doing - that they’re not just getting paid to show up and play a concert, but they also want you to enjoy and learn something about the music. Although Nicholas Phan confined his speech to information about the music and the composer, I think classical musicians could go further than that. Whenever you see rock/pop musicians perform (though, granted, I haven’t seen many of these) they tell the audience about themselves, their music, and sometimes even ask their audiences questions. It almost feels like they’re having a conversation with their listeners, and I think this would work for classical concerts, too. For example, I would have wanted to know how/why Nicholas Phan became such a Britten aficionado, or how he met the other musicians he was working with, and what their personal connection with Benjamin Britten’s music is. 

It was a great concert. And afterwards, I super awkwardly introduced myself to Nicholas and Sivan, and asked them to sign my cd. 

Which they did.

In other news, I am playing my very first concert in New York City tomorrow night! The Mannes Orchestra, Salvation Army Theatre, 7:30. 

Brittenpalooza, Round 2. Extended. X 1,000.

So I’ve been settling into my new place in NYC, and like I said, it’s taking me a little while to get adjusted to life in the city. There are things here that seem completely bizarre to me, but that everyone else seems to take for granted (and I am slowly starting to take in stride). For example, how freakin long it takes to get anywhere. When I was living in Rochester, if you had suggested that I drive an hour and a half to get dinner and a drink with some friends, I would have thought you were joking. I would never have traveled an hour just to see a concert (unless it was something really good). And I just returned from my weekly chorus rehearsal, which is also an hour away from where I live. 

(If you’re interested in other bizarre things that New Yorkers consider no big deal, check out New York Normal).

Anyway, that concert that I mentioned, the one that I traveled (at least) an hour to get to - was my VERY FIRST concert since living in New York City! I went to Trinity Church on Wall Street for their Concerts at One series. This fall they are dedicating almost all of their programming to Benjamin Britten. Not only is their concert series filled with Britten works, but so are their services, as well as a couple of special event concerts. Seriously, I am in heaven. The concert I went to a couple of weeks ago featured Novus NY, the church’s resident chamber orchestra, along with Nicholas Phan (tenor) and Virginia Warnken (mezzo-soprano), performing Britten’s Sinfonietta, Nocturne, and Phaedra. I was especially excited about hearing Nicholas Phan, whose name I have been seeing in connection with lots of Britten concerts for the past year. The whole concert was fantastic. I especially liked Phaedra, which struck me as a kind of operatic monologue - a very interesting piece. 

www.operabrittenica.com). I got to see this opera performed last year at Eastman, so I’m very excited to get to play it! And then for November 22nd (Britten’s birthday) I am organizing a concert of his harp and vocal music - I’ll post more information on that when I have it. 

It will be an epic semester of traveling and Britten. 

Harpist of August - Molly O'Roark!

I swear, I’m going to start writing these earlier than the very last day of the month. My only excuse is that for the past couple of weeks I have been moving/adjusting to life in New York City. 

And considering that I’ve lived upstate my whole life, that’s kind of a big adjustment. 

ANYWAY, my harpist of the month of August is Molly O'Roark! Molly recently graduated with her bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music and, like me, just moved to another school - in her case, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She will be studying with Ann Yeung for a master’s degree in harp performance. Molly got a full ride + a living stipend to go there - living the dream, and getting paid to go to school.

Molly decided that she wanted to play the harp at a very young age. "I came home from kindergarten one day when I was five, and I told my parents that I was going to be a harpist.“  A local musician had come into her school to give a demo, she explained. Besides several percussion instruments like spoons and the washboard, she also brought a small Israeli harp, and this caught Molly’s attention. Her parents did not immediately respond to her request for a harp, but she did not give up. "I kept talking about it, and I started writing stories about playing the harp. In first grade, my teacher called my parents in for a conference and said hey, does your daughter play the harp? Well maybe that’s something you should look into, because I’ve never seen a six year old so focused on doing one thing.” Molly received an autoharp for Christmas that year. She then pointed out to her parents that she needed lessons, which commenced when she was seven. 

Molly said she can’t remember ever wanting to do anything else, so when it came time to think about college, it was only natural that she apply to music schools as a harp major. “The harp was such a part of me at that point, as cheesy as that sounds.” She applied to Eastman, she said, not really expecting to get in, but when she got her first look at the beautiful Eastman Theatre - “I was floored. I think everybody is when they walk into Eastman Theatre, and I thought okay, I really, really want to go here!" 

Happily, Molly was accepted at Eastman, and proceeded not only to knock everyone’s socks off with her playing, but also to fill her resume with tons of extracurricular leadership activities. Besides being elected class president, she worked for Student Life and the concert office, eventually becoming a head usher. As a junior she was accepted into the Arts Leadership Program, through which she had internships at the Summer at Eastman program as well as with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. She said she enjoys planning things and being a leader. 

Seriously, I don’t know how this girl ever slept in college. 

As a senior, Molly won the harp concerto competition at Eastman and performed Debussy’s Danse Sacree et Danse Profane in that beautiful theatre that so captivated her as an auditioning student. "Winning this one was awesome,” she said. “It was kind of the ultimate completion of studying at Eastman.” I asked her what steps she took to prepare for the competition. “One thing that we forget is to really listen to ourselves,” she said. She described the intense detail that she gave to practicing the concerto - like spending at least an hour just experimenting with the amount of finger pressure that she was using in those opening chords. The end result was a beautiful performance, although she said, “It was a little terrifying - it’s a big-ass hall!”

Molly’s dream is to someday be a college harp professor. She was inspired, she said, when she realized how much of an impact a teacher has on a young student’s life. “My second teacher passed away really suddenly - she was really young, and just didn’t wake up one morning. It really was a major blow. I was starting to get really serious about playing the harp, and suddenly, I was left without a teacher. I just realized how much we take our teachers for granted.” Molly said one of the things she loves about music is that it is always different. “In teaching, you have to always use your brain, because you can’t take a cookie cutter approach. You have to take something that you do every day, and explain it six hundred different ways." 

Thanks for talking to me, Molly! Best of luck in grad school!

Back to SPAC

I have been going to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center to see the Philadelphia Orchestra perform every summer for as long as I can remember. I’ve always loved bringing snacks, spreading a picnic blanket on the lawn, and listening to the music. I never thought I would have the opportunity to play on that stage myself, but a couple of weeks ago a friend of mine who works with the School of Orchestral Studies (the high school music camp in the New York State Summer School of the Arts) texted me to say that they needed a harpist for their final concert. Was I interested? Oh, and by the way, the concert would be at SPAC. I was definitely interested!

[My first look from backstage…]

The concert went really well and it was so much fun to be able to play on that stage! At the end of the final rehearsal, the conductor shook my hand and said he hoped I would come back and play with them next year. I told him I didn’t - I hoped that they would get a harp student! I’d rather someone take advantage of the chance to go to SOS than keep the opportunity to play at SPAC to myself. My own students are a little too young yet, but maybe in a few years??

[My sister took a picture during the concert. There’s me and my harp!]

Closing Time

Open all the doors aaaand leeeet you out iiiiinto the wooooooorld….

(Really, I don’t have this song on my iPod??? Go figure). 

Anyway.

It’s closing week at the Ohio Light Opera. Yesterday we closed The Gypsy Baron, tonight was our last performance of The King and I, and tomorrow is the last Silk Stockings. Closing a show is bittersweet - bitter, because we’ve lived with these shows for the past two and a half months (for the singers, it’s been three) and it’s strange to think that we won’t be playing them again. And sweet, because good God, we’ve been playing these shows for the past two and a half months (or three) and we are rather sick of them at this point. 

Still, there were certain parts of every show that I always enjoyed playing/watching, no matter how tired I was of the rest of them. I thought I would share my favorite parts with you. 

The Gypsy Baron

I always enjoy Barinkay’s first song, the one that starts “An orphan since my early days…” In this song, he describes all of his adventures and where he’s been while in exile - as he says, almost everywhere. I sit there listening to it, thinking, this is what I want my life to be! I want to go everywhere, and do everything. 

Another part I found very interesting is the first song in Act III, in which Arsena is describing how difficult it is to be a girl. I feel like it must have been a very progressive song - she talks about how unfair it is that women are treated differently than men, having to do all the housework and basically being their husbands’ property. She sings, “As soon as she has said "I do,” she’s signed away her life.“ I always wonder how the audiences of 1885 reacted to this. 

I also loved all of the pig farmer’s songs, and the scene where the gypsies trick him out of his money.

The King and I

Although I enjoyed many parts of this show, "Shall We Dance” always stood out to me. I know, it’s everyone’s favorite, but there is a reason that it’s such an iconic scene. It always makes me smile (read: grin like an idiot), and the audience always goes nuts. It’s just an exhilarating thing to play and experience. And then, of course, what comes right after it - when Tuptim is caught, and the King is unable to beat her with Anna standing there watching him. It’s the darkest scene in the show, such a stark contrast to the happiness of the dance right before it. It always makes me cry. 

I also loved the kids in the show, especially the smallest girl (who is, in real life, the daughter of the actor who plays the King). She always seems completely unafraid of being onstage with hundreds of people watching her. She runs and skips across the stage with a huge smile on her face - like she knows exactly how cute she is.

Silk Stockings

Some of the songs I always enjoy playing are “Too Bad (in which the Russian characters are sarcastically lamenting the fact that they can’t go back to Moscow),” “Paris Loves Lovers,” “Stereophonic Sound (I always cheer silently when they mention Eastman Color),” the Hotel Sequence, and “Hail Bibinski.” There are just so many good songs in this show, and they’re so much fun to play. 

I always enjoy scenes with the three Russians - Ivanov, Brankov, and Bibinski. They’re so funny, especially the song “Siberia,” in which they’re trying to convince themselves that getting sent to Siberia might actually be a good thing - there will be no shortage of ice for cocktails, they can go ice skating anytime they like, and there will always be snow for Christmas! It makes me laugh out loud, even while I’m playing. 

Well, that’s that - I have one more show to play and then I am done here. It was a long summer, and yet I also feel like it’s gone by in a flash. I am looking forward to the next adventure!

I also am writing a piece on The Gypsy Baron - hopefully I can finish it next week. 

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!

Der Zigeunerbaron

Last week we opened the fourth show, The Gypsy Baron - the third (and last) show for me. It’s also a strange one for me, because it’s the one that the orchestra plays the most in, but I play the least. I probably play no more than 15 minutes of the entire thing. Really, Strauss II? Kind of silly, don’t you think?

Usually at intermission, while I’m tuning, people in the audience come up and want to talk to me. Usually they say things like “Oh, you sound lovely!” or, “I just love the harp!” or, “You all are doing such a wonderful job!”

Today in between acts of The Gypsy Baron, an elderly man came up to me and said, “You know, no one expects the harp to be in tune." 

…….

To which I cleverly (feebly) responded, "Well…. I… do…?”

I should have said “OH GOOD, SO I CAN THROW OUT MY TUNER AND TUNING KEY AND NEVER BOTHER WITH THEM AGAIN? YES!”

Our conductor is a very nice man, but I think he expects me to at least try to keep my harp in tune.

(The old man came back at the end of the show and told me that the harp and the whole show sounded great. He said that the harp added much more than a piano. He talked to me for a while before his wife dragged him away. It was very sweet.)

Harpist of June: Alida Fabris

In my last semester at Eastman, we had a special guest with us - Alida Fabris, a harpist from Europe! Although she is from Italy, she has gone to school and traveled all over the continent. She told me all about her unique (well, unique to us Americans) educational experiences and the orchestral auditions she has coming up. 

Tags Harpist of the month

Another Op'nin', Another Show

Okay, wrong Cole Porter show. The show that we’re doing is “Silk Stockings,” and we just had our opening performance a few days ago. It’s an awesome show and a lot of fun, but it was a pain getting started, because the parts are a mess. They’re all photocopies of the original, handwritten parts. They’re scribbled on and in some places just barely legible. Although there are rehearsal markings, they don’t always line up. Much of the first rehearsal was spent trying to figure out where everyone was and fixing notes written incorrectly in the parts. 

Now that we’ve got the show underway it’s a lot of fun, and all of the writing in my part makes me wonder about the harpist who wrote them. If these are copies of the original parts she must have been the first to play it. Who was she? What other shows did she play? What else did she do? Did she know Cole Porter? It’s interesting to think about the person who held a part before you did.

Here is my harp in relation to the stage (you can see the pit at stage level, it gets lowered for performances). 

Yup, right out in the open. It was very strange at first, but now that I’m used to it, it’s a lot of fun. I get to watch the shows when I’m not playing and people always come up to talk to me after the performance. My favorites are the little girls (and sometimes boys!) who stare bug-eyed at the harp and are too shy to actually say anything to me. Probably what I would have been like, too. 

In other news, the harpmobile crapped out on me again. I can’t wait to get rid of the thing in the fall. How do harpists get their harps around New York City?? I guess I’ll find out.

Here We Go, OLO (Sounds Like a Cheer, Doesn't It?)!

Tonight is opening night at the Ohio Light Opera! I arrived in Wooster, Ohio two weeks ago (wow, two weeks! It’s flown by) to start rehearsals for the season. The first week we played through about half the shows (there are seven, although I am only playing in three) and for the past several days we’ve been in dress rehearsals for The King and I. 

When we got into the theatre, I received kind of a surprise - they do not have room for the harp in the pit, so I am on a small platform next to the stage, basically in the audience. I was warned about this by a previous OLO harpist, however, the shock came when we started to play. I could actually hear myself! All the time! Sometimes I could only hear myself, and could barely hear the orchestra - usually it’s the other way around! It was very unnerving. 

I’m slowly getting used to it, but it’s still rather nerve-wracking (is it wracking, or racking??) to feel like the audience can hear every single solitary note (or wrong note) that I’m playing - and there are quite a lot of notes. The harp book for The King and I is almost TWO HUNDRED PAGES. That’s at least twice the length of any show I’ve ever played before. Really, Rodgers &Hammerstein, can’t you give a girl a rest??

On the bright side…

I have the best view ever!! Usually when I play a show I’m sitting in the pit, wondering what on Earth is happening onstage, but now I can play the show AND watch the show! Just not at the same time… that could get very distracting. 

Harpist of the Month of May (Yes, I'm Aware that it's June): Mikaela Davis!

Yeah, I know. I’m still playing catch-up. 

Mikaela Davis is a very multifaceted musician. Besides being a classically trained harpist, she is also a folk harpist/singer/songwriter with a band. Next year, Mikaela will be a senior harp performance major at the Crane School of Music (where I went to college!). 

Mikaela was lucky enough to go to one of the few public schools to offer harp lessons, which is how she got started. She says one of the things that inspired her to choose the harp was the death of her grandmother. “My Oma had just passed away that year, and I thought, if I play the harp in the living room, she can listen to me.” Mikaela began harp lessons in third grade and was first taught by a music teacher at school before switching to take lessons with Grace Wong, the principal harpist with the Rochester Philharmonic. Now at Crane, she studies with Dr. Jessica Suchy-Pilalis.

Mikaela started writing songs for an enrichment class that she took in middle school. She started on the piano (her early efforts, she says, sounded like Vanessa Carlton) before switching to write for the harp. “My friend’s dad gave me a cd of Joanna Newsom, and I was like oh - why aren’t I doing that?”

The first band that she played in was a duo she started in high school with a friend who played the ukelele. Calling themselves The Girls, they mostly played at informal locations like the Rochester Public Market. After The Girls broke up, she started writing and performing on her own. “I actually didn’t want a band, originally,” she says. “I did solo stuff for a while, and then I was showing my songs to Alex Cote (the band’s drummer), and he said ‘oh, you should add bells on some of your songs!’ He started playing shows with me and he would literally just play glockenspiel. And then he said 'you should add kick drum and snare,’ so it kind of added on really slowly. And then two years ago we added guitar, so then it was full drumset, bells, and guitar." 

Because at school she is always practicing classical music, Mikaela says this has influenced the way she writes the harp parts for her songs. "When I write a song it won’t be just chords, I’ll put some depth in the harp parts. Sometimes when I write a part, I have to practice it a little bit!”

Mikaela and her band released their first album almost a year ago, which you can find on her Bandcamp site as well as on iTunes (my favorite song happens to be “Something Better”). You can also listen to more of her music on her YouTube channel.

Her current band includes herself on harp and vocals, Alex Cote on drumset, and Cian McCarthy on guitar and sitar (both Alex and Cian go to SUNY Purchase), and they have been playing together for about a year. They have at least six new songs (such as “I Wouldn’t,” “Don’t Want Another Love,” and “Feels like Forever”),  as well as a cover of the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” (which is awesome). These are not on the album, so you’ll have to see them live in order to hear them (although there are plans to record an EP soon)!

(From left to right: Cian, Mikaela, Alex).

Mikaela has one foot in the classical world and one in the world of indie music, and she says she loves to play both styles. She is more than capable in both areas - she recently won the Crane Concerto Competition and performed Pierne’s Concertstuck with the Crane Symphony Orchestra. When she is finished with school, she says, she wants to focus on her band, but will continue to play classical music. 

Her plans for the immediate future are for her senior recital, which will included pieces like Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro (a personal favorite of mine), Salzedo’s Scintillation (which she played in the Crane Honors Recital this past year), and Casella’s Sonata for Harp. She also has a full schedule of gigs for her band this summer, including shows in Rochester and yet-to-be-announced tour dates throughout the northeastern United States. 

In Rochester, NY:

Friday, June 21st - Lovin’ Cup, 9pm

Thursday, July 11th - Hochstein at Highfalls, 12:10

Saturday, July 13th - Corn Hill Arts Festival on Avery Stage, 3pm

Friday, July 26th - Bug Jar, 10pm

Keep checking her Facebook page for more events this summer. Thanks for talking to me, Mikaela!

Brittenpalooza, Lilac 94, and Why I Have Been So Lax About Writing In My Blog

I have been extremely lazy about writing in my blog. I apologize. But I promise, I have a good reason. I am going to try to catch up, in one post, on all of the things I have been meaning to write about. 

First off, the Brittenpalooza.

This year is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Britten. Consequently there are LOTS of concerts of his music being performed. By crazy random happenstance, both Eastman and SUNY Potsdam, where I went to college, were performing their big spring choral/orchestra work on the same weekend. And surprise, surprise - both of them were doing the Britten War Requiem. I went to the Eastman performance on Friday night, and then traveled to Potsdam for the Crane School of Music’s performance on Saturday night. 

Britten’s War Requiem was commissioned for the opening of the Coventry Cathedral (the original was destroyed in WWII) and premiered in 1962. The piece employs huge forces, including a full orchestra, a chamber orchestra, a large chorus, children’s chorus, and three vocal soloists. Yikes. Britten intertwines the Latin of the Catholic mass with the poetry of Wilfred Owen, a poet and soldier who fought and died in WWI. Britten was a lifelong pacifist, and this is one of his most important anti-war works. You can hear more about the piece from some of the Eastman performers here.

I asked both harpists, Hannah Chute (Eastman) and Mikaela Davis (Potsdam) what they thought of the harp part and the piece in general.

“The orchestra plays, and then it goes straight into chamber orchestra, so it’s kind of hard to make those transitions,” said Mikaela. She also compared it to Britten's Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, because “every instrument has a tiny solo.” A big harp part to watch out for, she says, is in the second movement. “It’s just triads in your left hand in weird meters. But the pedals are really crazy, it’s like, at least two pedals every beat. It gets kind of messy.” Mikaela also mentioned that the harp only plays with the chamber group, “Which is kind of nice, because then you can hear the harp." 

Hannah agreed that one of the most difficult parts is the triad section in the second movement. "There are some moments that are really difficult, and there’s a lot of enharmonic solutions. There are a few things that are rewritten, but it’s still very pedal-y.” Hannah also compared one glissando section to the fugue from the Young Person’s Guide. 

I also asked Hannah about some harp parts to listen for and she said, “I have a big solo part when the angel shows up. Which sort of irritates me. It’s really fun to play, I just really am annoyed that he thought ‘Oh, an angel! Let’s have a harp solo.’”

I asked both of them what they thought of Britten’s writing for the harp. “I really like the part for the War Requiem a lot,” said Mikaela. “It’s kind of easy, and when the harp is playing, usually the harp is heard." 

Hannah said, "The best part to play is the last three pages of the last movement. It’s very peaceful. It’s involved, but it’s not hard, so you just get to play, but you’re not really stressed.”

It was very interesting to hear the two different interpretations of the Requiem back to back. Both groups did an awesome job!

Second off, Lilac 94. 

I have been involved in a harp duo with my friend Christina for a couple of years now, and we recently decided to continue playing together after school. Our goal is to become a professional group and travel around performing together. One of our challenges has been to come up with a name. We wanted something that would reference Rochester, since that was where we got our start. After much deliberation, we came up with the name Lilac 94. Lilac is the flower of Rochester, and of course, we have 94 harp strings between the two of us. 

We gave a concert at my hometown church near Albany, and it was a blast. We played all our old favorites, including Bernard Andres’ Parvis and Dyades, Porgy and Bess and Ravel's Mother Goose, as well as several folk songs. Many of my friends and family members showed up, as well as members of the church and my first harp teacher and a few of her students. We asked for donations to help us get started, and we raised over $500! We are so lucky to have such generous supporters!

We also got pictures taken by the lovely Melissa Zgouridi, who is a vocalist at Eastman as well as an expert photographer. We will be posting those on our Facebook page. 

And lastly, Why I have been So Lax About Writing In My Blog…

I GRADUATED!!!

And have been in a basically vegetative state since then. But now I have to wake up from the I’m-finished-with-my-master’s-degree-coma because I am now in Ohio playing for the Ohio Light Opera! Summer of musical theatre, here I come!

Sound ExChange at ArtisanWorks

A few weeks ago, Christina and I played an interesting concert at ArtisanWorks, a local Rochester art gallery, with an organization called Sound ExChange. 

Sound ExChange is a student-run organization that is dedicated to “exploring alternative ways of presenting music to reinvigorate the concert experience and engage audiences.” I played at one of their concerts last year, a program that was held in an art studio at the University of Rochester.  That was very cool, because they seated the audience inside the orchestra, rather than facing the musicians.  I had a little girl who looked like she was six or seven sit next to me and stare at the harp with bug eyes the whole time.  It was really fun to see that and other peoples’ reactions to being so close to us.  

Anyway, this concert was at ArtisanWorks, the coolest art gallery I’ve ever seen.  It seemed like every square inch of space was covered in art - paintings, antiques, and miscellaneous interesting objects.  The first half of Sound ExChange’s event was actually a series of musical performances going on simultaneously in different rooms - Christina and I played our duo program, and a few student dancers created choreography to go with some of the pieces.  I love dance (watching it, not doing it myself) so I was really excited to be involved in this.  It’s something I would want to do more of in the future. 

Thanks to Kristina Finch for taking pictures!

The second half of the event was a concert consisting of new chamber music (with lots of percussion and saxophones), culminating in the performance of a new work in which everyone - musicians and audience - had a part.  I sat in the audience for this piece, and it was probably one of the best concert experiences that I’ve ever had, because it really felt like we had an important part in the music.  All the sounds that we had to make - saying someone’s name, playing a music box or a noisemaker, etc. - seemed necessary, and not just filler to give us something to do.  And the piece, I thought, was pretty awesome.  

In other news, I’m not 100% sure where I will be in September, but this summer I will be playing in the pit orchestra for the Ohio Light Opera!  And getting PAID for it!  One pinky toe in the door!!!

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!  

Well, I hope it's hot enough for ya.

I will be playing in the Eastman Opera Company’s upcoming show “Street Scene,” by Kurt Weill.  It’s an interesting combination of opera and broadway styles, and it’s so much fun to play.  

Lots of glisses, lots of arpeggios!  

I’ve tried explaining the plot to people, and it always comes out very garbled and confused.  "Well, it’s about these people who live in a tenement building in New York in the 1940s, and they complain about how hot it is and get into squabbles about communism and… yeah.“  

Basically, it’s set in front of a tenement building in New York and follows the troubles and travails of its residents for two days.  I know that doesn’t give you much to go on, but it’s a great story and has great music.  I tend to like operas that deal with ordinary people (rather than kings or gods and whatnot).  The characters of "Street Scene” sing about things we can all relate to - graduation, the weather, their hopes and dreams.  They even sing about how much they love ice cream.  

The shows will be April 4th, 5th, and 6th at 7:30 and April 7th at 2pm in the Eastman Theatre.  There will be sex, death, and great music - what more could you ask for in an opera?  

Ossia Performs Tonight!

I will be performing in the Eastman Ossia concert, tonight in Kilbourn at 8pm!  Check out the spot about the concert on WXXI!  I’ll be playing Chris Chandler’s piece, “deep in liquid indigo” and Rosie will be playing in Mason Bates’ “Omnivorous Furniture.”  

March Harpist of the Month: Rosanna Moore!

I know this is coming pretty late in the month, but my harpist of the month of March is Rosanna Moore!  Rosie is currently a graduate student at the Eastman School of Music and comes to us from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England.  Her interests include playing the harp (of course), contemporary music, and acting.  

First I asked Rosie the obvious question - why did you get into playing the harp?

Rosie’s short answer - “Oh, it was big and expensive and awkward.”

Rosie’s long answer - “When I was four or five I went to a music school in the UK and we had an assembly in the morning.  There was a boy from higher up in the school, I think he was about fifteen or sixteen, and he brought his harp in and played for us.  And I sat there going, "he has a harp!! It’s so beautiful!!”  And I went home that evening and said, “Mummy, I want to play the harp.”  She turned around and said, “No you don’t, don’t be silly.”  I pestered them and pestered them and pestered them for a few years, and eventually when I was eight or nine they rented a clarsach for me, and found a teacher.  They said don’t worry, she’ll give up in six months, but I didn’t.  So my dad’s decided that I’m going to be world-famous, so I need to keep him in his old age because he’s been my chauffeur to youth orchestra and concerts and all that.“

Let’s not give my dad any ideas.  

I also asked Rosie how she got into acting.

"I always acted when I was little, I loved doing it.  I used to do little skits for my parents - I’m an only child, and I had loads of stuffed toys, and I used to make my parents sit down and watch these little acts that I put together with my toys.  I was a very cool child.  It just kind of went from there.  I did musicals for a little while, and I chose to do theatre as one of my options in school.  I nearly went and did acting instead of music, but I decided I’d miss the harp more than I’d miss acting, and it’s easier for me to combine it this way.”  

I got Rosie to admit that she can sing, too, but - “Not in public anymore.  But yeah, I’ve got a weird, sort of folky jazz voice that comes out once in a while.”  

We also talked about how she has combined her passions for harp and for acting.  Her undergraduate dissertation was about using theater practice to enhance your musical performance.  She makes a good point that it’s not only singers that need to do this, but instrumentalists, too.  She also talked about starting her final undergraduate recital with “Tea Ceremony” by Catherine Kontz, a piece which is all about the art of drinking tea.  "I did a very dramatic version of that, I sort of based my interpretation on Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter, and also the differences between eastern and western tea ceremonies.  A friend of mine happened to have spent some time in Japan, and she had a geisha kit, so she dressed up and did a Japanese tea ceremony whilst I played.“

Rosie is a person of diverse interests, which is why, she says, she wants to be a freelance musician.  "I change my mind constantly, what I want to do, it’s just the type of person I am.  If you’re attached to an orchestra rather than freelancing, it’s like having the equivalent of a nine to five job, and I can’t do that.  I need to do something different every week.  One week I’m doing a theatrical sort of thing with a mime, next week I’m doing solo concerts, the next week I’m playing in a jazz club in London, next week I’m playing a ballet orchestra - that keeps me going.”  

Rosanna has recently organized ten harpists from the Eastman studio to play “Anthill,” also by Catherine Kontz (www.catherinekontz.com) for what will be its US premiere (we think)!  I asked Rosie about her interest in contemporary music, and how she became  involved in Catherine Kontz’s music in particular.  

“The main reason I got into contemporary music in general was, as a wee little freshman in 2007, my teacher said, we’re going to talk about this concert that we’re going to do at the Huntersfield International Contemporary Music Festival.  It’s all pieces for twenty harps, but there’s one piece that’s being written specifically for the festival that’s for ten harps, and all the harpists at the Northern are going to do it.  She produced this massive graphic score, and we were like "What the heck is that?”  And that, of course, was “Anthill.”  

So Rosie played in the premiere of Anthill at Huntersfield.  The harp ensemble from Royal Northern was then invited to play at European Music Day, held in London in 2010, where they played “Anthill” under the dinosaur bones in the Natural History Museum - which I think is just the coolest image ever.  

You can come and hear the Eastman Harp Ensemble play “Anthill” by Catherine Kontz at the opening concert of the Women in Music Festival on March 25th - TOMORROW - at noon in the Eastman main entrance hall.  Ten harps with huge graphic scores - how often do you get to see that?  

(I will also be playing Caroline Lizotte’s “Odyssee” for the Women in Music Festival on Wednesday, March 27th at noon in the Sproull Atrium!)

Thanks so much for talking to me, Rosie!  Happy spring everyone, warm weather is coming soon!

Anthill rehearsal

Time for some pop harp.

One of the things that I love about the harp is that the kinds of music people play on it is so diverse.  There’s classical harp (which is me), jazz, pop, about as many folk styles as there are cultures - and pretty much anything else you can think of.  

Case in point, Lacey Lee!

www.laceyleeharp.com (where you can also buy her cd) and listen to a few of her songs FOR FREE on her Reverb Nation page.  

Unfortunately I will still have class from 7-9, but next Thursday, March 28th, will be a super day for pop harp in Rochester, NY.  Lacey will be playing at the Little Theatre Cafe from 7:30-9:30.  And then after you’ve gone to hear Lacey, you can pop over to the Skylark Lounge to hear Mikaela Davis (mikaeladavis.bandcamp.com), who is on at 10 o'clock.  Both are fabulous indie harpists and singers and both are definitely worth hearing live!  And I mean, come on - how many times in your life will you be able to hear TWO pop harpists in one night??