Avid music fans nearly filled the Music Building concert hall Thursday to listen to the first harpist Pierce has had in at least three years during the free concerts@Pierce series.
Jacqueline Marshall, a professional harpist, performed at Pierce through the Gluck Foundation’s Music Outreach Program at the University of California Los Angeles, which sends its best musicians to play live classical and jazz music for groups in the community.
Marshall played 10 pieces to an audience of almost 100 people, pausing in between pieces to explain how she started playing the harp and the places and groups she has worked in.
Tyler Barkhor, 20, attended the concert as part of a requirement for her class, but enjoyed the experience to see a harpist in action.
“It was nice,” Barkhor said. “She was very experienced.”
Biology-psychology major Jozef Tarevern, 18, attended the concert as part of his job working as an assistant in the Music Building.
Tarevern never usually listens to the concerts as he’s usually busy with something in the office, but was able to attend in order to help welcome guests to the concert.
“It was relaxing,” Tarevern said. “I enjoyed it while I was in there.”
Since she was 7-years-old, Marshall has been fascinated with the harp, stemming from an encounter with one during a talent show when she was 6 years old.
“I remember I just really loved the sound,” Marshall said.
The harp, for those who don’t know, is like a vertical piano with seven foot pedals that change the pitch of the string, like a piano’s black keys, one for each note on the music scale.
Marshall’s particular harp consists of 47 stings made from a combination of cow-gut and steel wire.
Marshall eventually got advanced lessons from a harpist up in San Francisco, where she lived while obtaining her Professional Studies Diploma in Harp Performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Besides playing Principal Harpist in orchestras like the UCLA Philharmonia and YMF’s Debut Orchestra, and at famous locations like the Walt Disney Concert Hall, she is involved teaching students music.
In 2006, she helped form The Harp In Our Public Schools Project, and three years later she led 11 of the students from the program in a sold-out performance at the Opening Night Gala at the Hollywood Bowl, according to a flyer given out at the recital.
The next performance scheduled for the free concerts@Pierce series is the Bartok String Quartet next Thursday at 12:45 p.m. in room 3400 of the Music Building.
Music Outreach Link: http://www.music.ucla.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1357:about-music-outreach&catid=43&Itemid=225
List of Scheduled Performances Link:
http://www.piercecollege.edu/departments/music/concerts.asp