Harpist Lavinia Meijer Wants to Unleash Her Instrument’s Potential
Excerpts from spotlight article by Lily O'Brien
For San Francisco Classical Voice
Harpist Lavinia Meijer has forged a successful yet unconventional career on an instrument that more often demands a set path. In addition to playing the classical canon in major concert halls internationally, she is passionate about expanding her practice to other musical genres, including rock, pop, jazz, and electronica. She has experimented and collaborated with a wide range of composers and musicians, including Iggy Pop, Sufjan Stevens, and Laurie Anderson.
Meijer was born in South Korea but grew up in the Netherlands after she and her brother were adopted as toddlers. She was accepted into the Utrecht Conservatory’s Young Talent program at age 11 and by 14 was performing with orchestras. She went on to earn her master’s degree, with honors, from the Amsterdam Conservatory.
Not long after she graduated, Meijer met a music journalist who admired her playing and connected her with composer and pianist Philip Glass, who eventually invited her to perform with him. Glass became a close friend and mentor and also gave the harpist permission to transcribe and record an entire album of his compositions.
Meijer will be performing in the Studio at Stanford Live on March 15, presenting pieces by Glass, Ólafur Arnalds, and Nils Frahm, along with some of her own compositions and a U.S. premiere by Douglas J. Cuomo.
How did you start exploring music beyond the classical repertoire?
I noticed you could do so many things with the harp — not only beautiful Romantic music, which I love to play, but also modern. You can scream and really put a lot of force into it. So when I was 15 years old, I decided my personal goal [would be] to make the harp more well known as a solo instrument to a wider audience, just like the piano, and to guide the harp into the 21st century. I believe that the harp fits pretty much with anything.
Tell me about your relationship with Philip Glass and why you were so attracted to his music.
My most precious, most enriching collaborations [have been] with Philip Glass. When he came to Amsterdam, he invited me to perform with him, and that was for me an amazing moment. He was also very impressed and said to me, ‘I’ve heard this piece played by many artists so many times, but hearing you play it on the harp gives me new insights into my own music.’
The classical music I used to play was like a village with all kinds of different buildings, bridges, details that you had to memorize if you wanted to walk through it. His music is a village where at first, it all looks the same. And then you have to look for the details, and you will see the differences, but they are subtler. On the harp, his music brings out so many colors. Maybe because [his writing is so] transparent and the harp is a really rich-sounding instrument and every tone has so many overtones — like extra colors. When you play his music, those overtones really come to life, and it can sound as if you are playing a whole orchestra.
Tell me about the premiere of Douglas J. Cuomo’s new piece on your upcoming concert.
Douglas is the composer of, among many things, the Sex in the City main theme and has continued composing all kinds of classical works. I was introduced to him by our mutual management in the U.S., and he came to see me perform a couple of times. We clicked. Through Glass, I learned more about Buddhism, and I do meditation, and Douglas is also Buddhist, so it was nice to talk to him about it. He told me a really beautiful story about this relatively new ritual in Japan where people who are missing their loved ones who [have died] have made a phone booth, and you can go inside and call your loved one.
Click here to read SFCV spotlight article in full.
Comments