Historical
Harp
My fascination with early harp began in my junior year at Oberlin, when I discovered a Welsh triple-strung baroque harp in a locked practice room on the third floor of the conservatory. Nobody at Oberlin had any record of where it came from, nobody knew how to play it, and nobody had been very interested in trying to track down the origins of it - there are many other things to do with one’s time in college.
My interest grew and I did independent study on early harps, which culminated in a Fulbright Research grant to Switzerland in 2019. I received my Masters in Historical Harps from the Haute école de musique Genève in 2021, studying with Dr. Maria Cleary.
While in Switzerland I studied 800 years of harp history and repertoire. Scroll down to see some of the harps I play!
Instruments
All pre-classical harps I have played are replicas, because the string tension simply doesn't allow harps to survive from the early centuries.
The earliest harp I have played is a medieval harp called Cythara Anglica from the 12th century, a replica built by Rainer Thurau. We can assume some harpists tied straps to their harps as I did here, so they could play standing up.
Next is a medieval and renaissance double-rowed harp (maker unknown). This particular harp has one row of diatonic strings and a parallel row of chromatic strings.
Finally, we have a harpe organisée, or "simple harp," known best as the single-action pedal harp. A modern harp has seven pedals, which can raise and lower notes by two half steps, the single-action also has seven pedals, but can only raise or lower notes by one half step ("single" action).
The harp I am playing here is an original instrument, build by Érard in 1809. It has an eighth pedal called the pedale de renforcement, or the "reinforcement pedal," which opens and closes doors in the back of the harp to change the sonority.
Moving forward in time brought a harp called the arpa de dos ordenes, a renaissance and baroque instrument from the Iberian peninsula. This instrument is "cross-strung," and has two rows of strings that cross in the middle. One row is tuned diatonically while the other is tuned with the chromatics. Mine was made by Claus Henry Huettel, and is modeled after an instrument by Pere Elias, in Barcelona, 1704. The top picture on this page is a close up of the crossed strings.
Next is the baroque arpa doppia, or triple-strung harp. This is an Italian triple-strung from 17th century Bologna, copied by Thurau. The arpa doppia has three parallel rows of strings; the outer two rows are tuned diatonically (doubling the pitches, hence the "doppia"), and the inner row is tuned with sharps and flats.
Research & Performance
MA Thesis
In 2023, I completed an MA in Musicology at Dalhousie University under the supervision of Dr. Jennifer Bain. My thesis was titled "'She Drew Forth Its Strongest Sounds': Tracing the Historical Throughline of Women Harpists." I visited the Archivio di Stato di Mantova in Mantua, Italy, for primary archival research and was able to show that women have been professional harpists since time immemorial through iconography, literature, and case studies focused on the time period between 1100-1630.
My thesis is publicly accessible here through the Dalhousie Library website.
Article in the AHJ
In 2022, I was honored to receive the Collegiate Writer's Award from the American Harp Journal and to have my article "An Illegible Lullaby" published in the Summer 2022 edition! This was an edited version of my first MA thesis, in which I compared four editions of the harp solo in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo...which has never been printed without errors. It's on page 44 in this pdf (available also through the AHJ/American Harp Society website):
World Harp Day
I was excited to be a part of the World Harp Day 2021, in which I explain and demonstrate the eighth pedal, and perform a piece on single action as well as a piece on triple-strung. This was a wonderful project which showcases harps from around the world! My pieces are at 39:00 and 1:21:46.
Helicona and Fieracavalli
In October and November of 2021, I was involved in a collaboration between the Helicona International School of Improvisation and the Horse Valley ASD riding center in Verona, Italy. We choreographed three carousels with horse riders, and decided on a tableau of renaissance and baroque music, based on the rhythm of the gaits, to accompany the choreography. The connection between horsemanship and musicianship is actually an old idea - Grisone wrote about it in 1558, and Guerniere, in 1736, described a “balletti a cavalli” or “horse ballet.” Though we didn’t try to recreate an entire horse ballet as it was performed in the Baroque era, we did perform our own horse ballets at the 2021 Fieracavalli.
For more information about Helicona, horses, and music, here is the link! https://helicona.it/en/categories/helicona-project-research/music-and-horsemanship-research