Kirsten Agresta Copely: Transcript
Podcast and Video with show notes
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
I would listen to New Age music and ambient music in specific Brian Eno because it helped me feel better and it made me relax. And then I became interested in doing that myself to help other people. And that is really one of the most remarkable and rewarding things that has come out of these albums that I've written, these two albums that I've written, is the fact that people, and especially with Aquamarine, people, have said to me, my goodness, this has really helped me with my grief.
Leah Roseman:
Hi, you're listening to Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman. This podcast is available wherever you listen to podcasts or as a video on my YouTube. This week's episode is with the award-winning harpist and composer Kirsten Agresta Copley. Kirsten has had a really diverse career starting with rigorous classical training as a young child, an illustrious career as an internationally touring solo harpist, and then a contrasting career performing with pop and rap icons such as Beyonce, Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, and so many more famous artists, lots of studio work, and as a composer and arranger. In this wide ranging conversation, we talked about dealing with grief, ways of dealing with stress and anxiety, and many insights from Kirsten's unique path through the music industry, including as an educator and mentor. Before we get into the conversation, I thought it would be a great time to share part of the official I Am Water video, which is one of the tracks from her album Aquamarine. Very shortly after we recorded this episode, Aquamarine was nominated for a Grammy award for Best New Age, Ambient or Chant album. Kirsten has shared several tracks from Marine and some of her other projects that are excerpted in this podcast. And if this music draws you in, please click on the link to her website in the show notes, which will take you to all the places to buy and stream her music. Here's a clip from I Am Water from Aquamarine. (music)
Hi, Kristen. Thanks so much for joining me here today.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Thank you for having me as your guest today,
Leah Roseman:
I want to congratulate you on your beautiful new album, Aquamarine.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Thank you.
Leah Roseman:
I know we'll be able to share some of that music a little bit later in this episode, and it's a very special album in terms of the relationship to your late mother, and she sounds like she was a pretty incredible person. So I thought it might be an interesting starting point to start talking about her and your unusual early music education with her.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Absolutely, yes. Aquamarine was written as an homage to her as well as our shared love of the ocean. And one of the things that was very, it was very important to both of us in my youth, was spending time near blue spaces, and I use that term broadly encompassing lakes, rivers, oceans, any place that has a body of water that has carrying motion to the water. And I grew up in suburban Michigan outside of Detroit. And so I grew up in a Great Lake state, and my mother was actually a choral conductor as well as a music educator. And she also had degrees in ethnomusicology. So I was introduced to music from a very, very young age, and in fact started playing the piano when I was 18 months old because she sat me on her lap and taught me to play the keys on a piano from that very early age.
And that was the very beginning of my musical tutelage, so to speak. And then one thing that I really love speaking about my mom is that she was a former Miss Michigan. So she was Miss Michigan in 1957, which was a great honor for her in her lifetime. And she dedicated the Mackinac Bridge, which is the bridge that connects the lower peninsula and the upper peninsula of Michigan. And that became someplace that our family traveled to and made sure that we visited often because she had such a history there. But we traveled all over the world, and one thing that was very important to us was finding places where we could spend time near water. So water ran a very, it was a stream through our existence growing up and into my adulthood. And so the conservancy of that was, and conservation of the ocean is very important to me as well. And that was something that she was very fiercely protective of. And I feel like this album really was able to honor both of those things. Not only her inspiration and her support of me as a musician, as a growing up and as a rising musician to everything that I've just spoken about is in terms of our love of the sea.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Kirsten, I was interested to read that she was an educator and then she paused her career as an educator when you were young to really devote herself to you in terms of not just your upbringing, but actually your musical education. She was very dedicated to that.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
She was.
Leah Roseman:
Could you speak a little bit to the huge instrument collection you guys had and what that was like as a child?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Absolutely. Well, that's actually how I started to play the harp, is that she was very interested in unique and unusual instruments. And so we had a marimba and ukulele and a concertino and lots of different unique instruments. And she found an ad in the local paper for a troubadour harp, which is more of a folk, maybe student version of instrument. And she bought it really for her own interest and the idea that maybe she could learn to play it a little bit because she knew that she was becoming more involved with things in my world as far as brownies, girl scouts, that kind of thing. She thought she could use it in those instances. And then I was five at the time. I sat down behind it and started to tinkle with it, and she knew that she needed to find me a real teacher that knew how to play the instrument. So I studied very early on with the principal Harpist of the Detroit Symphony. And then at about age 11, my parents drove me to Bloomington, Indiana where I studied with Suzanne McDonald, who is now the professor of emeritus from Indiana University of Bloomington. And she was my mentor from that moment of age 11 until I graduated with my master's degree, because that's where I ended up doing both of my degrees as well.
Leah Roseman:
How long a drive is that from Detroit to Bloomington?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Seven hours.
Leah Roseman:
Okay.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Yeah. So we went about every month, every three to four weeks, and that was how I really studied for most of my upbringing. I took two years off from those trips and instead flew here to New York City where I studied with Nancy Allen at Julliard and also at the Aspen Music Festival, but that was just for two years. The rest of the time was all with Ms. McDonald. My parents were very dedicated to taking me to orchestra rehearsals, and my mother was really the one that did all of it. She drove me to Toronto and to the Youth Symphony, to Lavonia Symphony, Michigan Symphony, and all of these competitions and anything that I was involved with, she was right there by my side, including performances at Carnegie Hall and all around the world.
Leah Roseman:
So now we're going to be editing in some of your beautiful music to this episode, so maybe this would be a good time to introduce something. One of the tunes I really loved, I'll just check the name. Oh, yeah, Naids, would that be possible to include some of that?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Of course, yes, yes, that would be great.
Leah Roseman:
Do you want to speak to that title or anything about it?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Naids was actually released as a solo and ended up on the album because it also had a water theme, and I chose that title because it's the nymphs and the spirits that preside over rivers and smaller bodies of water, and that's how I decided to name the piece that, because it has a rolling pattern to it and a very light lilting feel as well.
Leah Roseman:
This is an excerpt from Naids from Kirsten's album, Aquamarine.(music) Thank you so much. Now, your husband helped in the production in terms of the what's called outboard music production,
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
The mixing.
Leah Roseman:
Yes, the mixing. Yeah. So I had to look things up because I wasn't familiar with these terms, so maybe you could speak to that and how that's different than
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Absolutely. A lot of people are uncertain as to what the soundscaping is behind the songs that I create, and the mixing is really what that encompasses. So we call it the special sauce because a lot of people assume that it's created with synthesizers or keyboards, so synth pads and that kind of thing. And there are no keyboards and no synths on any of my music. So what he does is a mixture of modern and vintage outboard effects, and he creates that. That really does complete the, we we're a partnership in that way where my music rests on its own as a solo piece, but without that, soundscaping is a completely different song. So even when I compose, I have an effects pedal and an amplifier next to me at all times because I need to know what the decay is going to be, what a potential decay is going to be or delay is going to be, and I write around that so that I can create space in the music. And so that there's, as classical musicians, we tend to be very, I guess, drawn to notey music. Most of our solo repertoire is quite demanding, and the music that I'm writing is New Age, so it's meant to be calming, it's meant to be relaxing, and it has to have a certain amount of space in order to accomplish that.
Leah Roseman:
I know you've performed in Carnegie Hall in many different musical ensembles, and we can talk about that, but those early performances were those solo or part of orchestras?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
I did three solo recitals at Weill Recital Hall, and then in 2006 I, I can't think back to exactly the year, but I think it was 2006. It was a concerto soloist in the main hall Stern auditorium.
Leah Roseman:
I did my Master's at Indiana in Bloomington.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Oh, you did! Amazing.
Leah Roseman:
I still feel a little regret. I met a harp player once, and it was one of these passing conversations, and she said she absolutely didn't want to play an orchestra. She only wanted to be a soloist. I think I answered with some level of incredulity because in my limited view, this was impossible because the only possible option was to be an orchestral harpist. All I knew, and she just dismissed me and we never, I don't think, spoke again. But since then I've thought, oh, that was very narrow of me. I should have just been open to whatever her dreams were.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Absolutely. Well, I think that's a standard response is that you expect that the harpist is going to be wanting to do orchestral work. Certainly I love playing in orchestras, and I enjoy every opportunity that I have to do that, but that was never my main goal either. And it just depends on the career path that you decide to take once you're out of school. And in fact, when I graduated from Indiana, many of the main orchestras in the country were opening, and it was a little bit of a domino effect because each one of them had people retiring and moving on in life, and I took all of them, and I felt like there were very few of them that I really wanted, and it was a good learning experience for me to determine that that wasn't really where my focus was. And in fact, I did enjoy being a soloist for a good number of years, but then that also burned me out a lot, and I felt like that I do a lot of pop arrangements and I'm also involved in many pop situations, and that was something that was always of interest to me, to be able to be well-rounded, and to also say yes to whatever opportunities were thrown my way.
And thankfully, I was really, really lucky in that respect to be a freelancer and to have things really come to me in many, many different facets.
Leah Roseman:
What I found it really interesting when I was researching your story is that you had kind of a burnout from the harp at a certain point, and you went over to the vocal side. Can you speak to that experience?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Yes. When I was in high school, I was very involved with the musicals. And so in all four years of my life, I was doing musical theater. I loved to sing. I was definitely always interested in doing theater. And when I went to college, I felt like I had an opportunity to spend some time diving into that part of my talent base. So I was a vocal major for the first year and a half of my undergrad at Indiana, and then my sophomore year I became a double major, and then my junior year I dropped voice and became just a harp major. So I did spend a lot of time at Indiana singing as well, because I was part of a traveling show choir called the Singing Hoosiers, which you might know something about. You said she went to school there. And that was really fun for me because it was a way for me to still be a harp major, but actually do something on the side as a vocalist as well.
Leah Roseman:
How did your mom react to that change?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
She was very supportive of every decision that I made, and in fact, I don't remember her ever telling me I shouldn't do something. She wanted me to explore what made me happy, and she was very supportive of that, even if it meant that I was doing something that she probably expected would not be where I ended up. But I think she, as a mother, she was very good about making sure that I was learning from my own mistakes or my own choices, and that was something that I really felt so happy about and feel happy about in retrospect, looking back at my youth, is that I was never told that I couldn't do something. I was never told not to do something. It was always just, do you want to do it? And if you do, then go for it.
Leah Roseman:
How did Suzanne McDonald react?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Well, at that point, I had been studying with Nancy Allen prior to going to college. That was my junior and senior year of high school. And so by the time I got to Bloomington, I went to Bloomington with the intention that I knew that I would sometime go back to my primary instrument. So there was a little deep down knowledge that I wouldn't end up where I started necessarily. And in fact, it was very funny because I ran into her in the women's restroom one day, and I looked her and said, Ms. McDonald, it's me, Kirsten. And she said, oh my goodness, what are you doing here? Why are you not in the harp studio? So that December, actually, I had a private audition with her and her assistant at the time, and that was it.
Leah Roseman:
So how big was the Harp studio when you were there?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Oh, well, Indiana's known as having one of the largest harp departments in the world, and that was really all due to Suzanne. So at the time that I was there, there were probably anywhere between 19 and 25 students. I mean, it was a very large studio and of the highest caliber as well.
Leah Roseman:
Hi, just a short break from the episode, which I hope you're enjoying so far. If you want to check out over a hundred episodes you may have missed in addition to your podcast player or YouTube, I have an extensive website, leah roseman.com with show notes, transcripts, the complete catalog of episodes, and you can sign up there for my weekly newsletter to get access to sneak peeks of upcoming guests. Please do share your favorite episodes with your friends, follow me on social media and share my posts. And if you can spare a few dollars to help support the series, that would be amazing. And you can find that link in the show notes. I'm an independent podcaster and I really do need the help of my listeners. Now, back to the episode!
We were just talking before about your burnout. I just wanted to circle back to that because I find it very interesting as a classical musician myself who started as a child and had this very narrow path. And then now on this podcast, I really try to talk to all kinds of musicians from around the world, and I find it interesting talking to people who started maybe as an adult or discovering a music or style of music they didn't even know about and just going for it as opposed to the path I took, which is more similar to what you did. And as an educator yourself, do you have any reflections on that, like the burnout people can experience by doing classical music from a young age?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Well, I think because as you said, I started from a very young age and I was competitive from a young age, so at a certain point I felt like I wanted to be a normal kid, and I wanted to do those things. I was a cheerleader, a pompom girl in high school, the musicals I wanted to be involved in things that, and I guess that included me in a community because as you said, the harp is always by itself. So most of my work, even if I'm in an orchestra, I'm still the only one in my section. And other than that, I play alone most of the time.
There's an element of isolation that you feel as a harpist, I guess from that perspective. And I think by the time I got into high school, I was also exploring what else I was good at. And so I was a good writer. I was taking creative writing courses and feeling very confident about my abilities in that department. And then for a hot second, I wanted to be an oceanographer until I realized how many biology classes that would require. So that was very short-lived, but it was just, I think a normal child, a youngster young woman, trying to figure out where I fit in the world and what I really wanted to do. And I think everybody assumed that I would become a harpist. And so there was a little defiance in me that said, well, no, but I'm good at other things too.
But as it went along, it became very obvious to me that this really is an extension of my soul and being behind that instrument is where I belong and what I'm meant to do. So I think as far as, I taught at Vanderbilt University for four years in Nashville, and I think one of the things that I was very eager to do with the students was to make them well-rounded within the music business. And that was one thing that I felt was strongly lacking in curriculums across the country for the most part, that kids are going to school to be soloists, to be orchestral musicians, but they don't have a clue how to market themselves when they get out of school or what to do when they get their degree. So I took it upon myself to really work with them about playing with beats and playing to Broadway charts and to conductors videos and what that might look like in a real world situation. So I think allowing young artists to discover their path is great, but I think there's also a point where as mentors, we have a responsibility to show them the bigger world that they're about to walk into when they graduate.
Leah Roseman:
Next you'll be hearing an excerpt from the title track Aquamarine. (music) I know you grew up in Detroit, so one of my previous guests, Leslie Deshazor, grew up there and I've spoken with her what an important musical city it is, and it occurs to me you've lived in four really important cities because I'm going to separate Manhattan from Brooklyn where you now reside and also Nashville.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Yes, yes, absolutely. Which one do you want to talk about?
Leah Roseman:
Well, how about just we can talk a little more about Detroit and growing up there. You mentioned a few of the opportunities you had as a young musician.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Well, I grew up outside of Detroit, so I was in a suburb about 18 miles north. I went to a private school there that had a very strong arts program, and that was wonderful for me because it allowed me to be really immersed in the arts in other ways outside of my harp world. I was also playing piano competitively at that time. So the piano has always been a very important instrument to me. It's still a very important instrument to me. I write music for the piano as well. I have many loves as far as music are concerned, but the harp and the piano are truly my two real true loves.
Leah Roseman:
No, I didn't know you wrote music for piano. I was curious if you wanted to include any of that. I haven't heard any of it.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
I have a moniker. It's called Star Age, and it's actually an anagram of Augusta. Okay. It's also Neoclassical New Age music, and it gave me an opportunity. We have a recording studio here in our Brooklyn home, and I have my Steinway that I grew up playing here. So it's the first time in my life that I've been able to record on it, and that's been really rewarding. I haven't been able to do much of it recently because I've been very immersed in all things Awkward Marine at the moment, but it's always there for me, and it brings me great solace actually to sit behind it and play in a much different way than the harp does. It's actually of the place that I go when I need to feel healing or I need to feel some sort of release.
Leah Roseman:
This is an excerpt from Threads Piano Music from Star Age written and performed by Kirsten Agresta Copely. Before we leave the topic of great music cities. So Nashville, what was that experience like?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Well, we moved there in 2014, and my husband's publisher was based there at the time. He was doing a lot of songwriting, and we decided to take a break from Manhattan. And in that time, it was a very rewarding seven years there. I think the city really treated us very well. I was the top session harp was there. I was playing for a lot of movie soundtracks and films. Films and TV shows and video games, and lots of the kind of work that doesn't exist anymore so much in the bigger markets because it's too expensive in these bigger markets. And of course then the last four years I was at Vanderbilt, so that was my primary work there. But we both played on the CMA Christmas show on ABC, and there were lots of opportunities that came from being there. But in 2021, after the world had shut down and after we realized that we can no longer fly back and forth to New York City to maintain the jobs that we had here, which we had been doing for most of that time, at that point, five years of that time, we looked at each other and said, I think we need to go back.
That's where we belong. That's where our friends are. It's where our, there's only one Carnegie Hall. There's only one Lincoln Center. And I missed that. I missed being a part of the fabric of the city's musical life.
Leah Roseman:
When you were in Nashville, did you cross paths with Tracy Silverman?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Yes, yes. I played with Tracy many times, different things. Yep.
Leah Roseman:
So he was a previous guest of this podcast and he was
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Oh, fantastic.
Leah Roseman:
Saying how people imagine Nashville's all about country music, but so many musicians have moved there simply because it's more affordable than New York.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
That is very true. That is very true. And you can have a much better quality of life, I think. We lived in a beautiful house south of Nashville in a town called Franklin, and it was lovely, it was peaceful, it was quiet. It's all the things that New York isn't. But then you look at what you're missing in this city where I feel the greatest opportunities of my life have existed and where they continue, it continues to offer me amazing, amazing opportunities.
Leah Roseman:
And within Brooklyn, I know there's quite a music scene there in terms of, I don't know, what's it like?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Well, we live in Bushwick, which is of course a very large portion of Brooklyn, and we live in a very residential area of it, so it's not the hipster zone, if you will, but it'ss where we were able to find a townhouse that really met all of our qualifications, moving from a place where we had a house and where we had a lot more space. So when we came back, my poor realtor had a laundry list of things that we needed, including an outdoor space for our dog that we had adopted in Nashville and the recording studio primarily. And so this place that we ended up with had a 1200 square foot basement that was fully renovated and was perfect to make a recording studio out of. So we were able to build a first class professional, really great space for our projects and other people's projects.
Leah Roseman:
Wonderful. Before we leave, we talked a little bit about Suzanne McDonald. She was such a huge part of your harp education. I wondered if you just had maybe two or three things like highlights of her pedagogical approach to teaching that you might want to reflect on?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
I think one of the biggest things that I learned from her was to have a very supple and warm tone. And that was something that she really was able to teach well as well as show as an example in her own playing. And she was remarkable in the sense that, I mean, we'd all be playing different repertoire, and yet she could play every single one of the pieces that we were all working on. And imagine with a studio of 25 how much substantial music that is, and she would just pull the harp over and play the passage and know it like the back of her hand. And I always thought that was just so incredible that she was able to do that. And she was just very supportive in a motherly way with me at least. I'm not sure that everyone had that experience with her, but I certainly did. And that came along with some tough love. And there would be times when I would leave my lessons and I'd be crying, but I'd be crying because I maybe wasn't prepared the way she expected me to be. And she had very high expectations for me, and that was something that I really took very seriously.
Leah Roseman:
Is there another track from Aquamarine we could use? Part of, I
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Think the songs that I'd like to include would be the title Track Aquamarine and Into the Mist, which is the last track.
Leah Roseman:
Into The Mist really speaks to the loss of your mother and her
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Well into The Mist was actually the first piece that I wrote for this album, and it was composed loosely as a hymn, and the feeling that I was watching my mother slowly disappear into the mist. And so that was really how I started the album, was to start from the end and then go back to the beginning and write the pieces as they felt that they came in the process. So this was over a span of two years, and it wasn't necessarily a dedicated amount of time where I just sat down and wrote the whole album in two weeks. It was more that one song at a time would come to me as things were happening, and they became a grouping and an album out of that.
Leah Roseman:
This is Into the Mist from the album Aquamarine. (music) It is very beautiful. And you spoke about the warm, supple sound. You really hear that it comes across.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Oh, thank you. Thank you. That's something I am very proud of, is that I'm able to carry on that legacy of Suzanne's.
Leah Roseman:
Now, I'd heard you say in another interview that you got interested in the style of music because to help you deal with anxiety and touring and so on. Do you want to speak to that sort of motivation or interest?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Yes, I think we, especially the world that we live in right now, and always there is something that is maybe gring at you or dragging you down. And I was born under a water sign and also feel that I take on a lot from the outside world. I would listen to this to new age music and ambient music and specific Brian Eno because it helped me feel better and it made me relax. And then I became interested in doing that myself to help other people. And that is really one of the most remarkable and rewarding things that has come out of these albums that I've written, these two albums that I've written, is the fact that people, and especially with Aquamarine people, have said to me, my goodness, this has really helped me with my grief. And I didn't even know that I needed to let out that emotion.
And I started crying when I heard the such and such track, and they choose a track that made them feel something, and that means the world to me, because if my music can reach even one other person and it helps them through something the way it's helped me work through my mother's death, then that's incredible. So yeah, I think we all need something, and it doesn't need to be music, but there needs to be something that we can identify with through meditation or through yoga or a walk down into the park or a walk on the beach, just anything that connects us with a higher version of ourself and that can allow us to create space in our minds to let go of what it is that's potentially harboring within.
Leah Roseman:
So your mother was ill for quite a bit of time before she passed.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
My mother was ill for most of my adult life, and I mean that in the sense that she didn't die of cancer. She didn't have something that was a long term debilitating disease, but she had multiple brain surgeries. She had three brain surgeries, she had a major stroke and two aneurysms that burst in her brain, and then she had severe scoliosis. Oh boy. And the scoliosis is what ended up being the thing that tore her body apart, and that came along with a lot of complications that ended her life. So it was not a surprise for her to disappear in January. And I had been expecting it for a very long time, but I think in some ways, this album came out of the many, many years of dealing with her medical traumas and being the person who was always around her trying to help her heal from these traumas, especially down the line when she had her stroke. And she really didn't have an advocate aside from me. So it's a lifetime of sadness and anxiety from watching somebody you love go through that much pain and agony and subsequent hospice.
Leah Roseman:
I can relate. My mom had a very long illness for much of my adult life, although she died a number of years ago. But every situation is of course, completely different. But I understand a little bit where you're coming from. You had mentioned travel, and I know that you love to travel and you have some travel stories. You went to Tanzania, right?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
We did. We went to Tanzania actually in late February of 2020,
Leah Roseman:
Right before!
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
So you can see where this is going. It had actually been a dream of my husband and mine to go to Africa, and especially with our love of nature and animals as well, we always had wanted to do a safari. And so we chose Tanzania based on the fact that we found a travel company that did a wonderful all-encompassing, I think it was 13 day tour through the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater and all of the places that you really read about and want to go. And we were so fortunate we got to see the great migration in the middle of it on a hill so that they didn't trample over you, but it was a life-changing, extraordinary experience. And on the very last day, the travel company said, stay tuned, because we might have to pull you and send you home a day early if we see that they're going to close the borders. And we flew home as we had planned to, and got home the day before the travel ban went into effect. So we were really rolling the dice, but we didn't know it at the time. It wasn't something that we would've not gone on the trip because of at that point, and we're so grateful that we made it happen. And then in a very surreal moment, came home and we're sequestered at home for weeks on end after that and months and years.
Leah Roseman:
And more recently, you were at the opening of the Sphere. Do you want to speak about that?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Well, what I can say about that is that we were very fortunate to be invited to the opening weekend. And so it was something that was very meaningful to us because obviously it's an extraordinary venue and one that is single-handedly changing the way we experience live performance because of the multimedia dimension that is associated with it. And we're big fans of U2. So it was a lot of fun to be able to be there and experience it, and especially as a VIP with the opening weekend invitations.
Leah Roseman:
So people listen to this from all around the world. They may not know what we're talking about, so maybe you could,
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Oh, okay. Okay. Well, the Sphere is a brand new venue in Las Vegas that is basically, when you look at, it looks like a big globe. It's a round building, and it has tens of thousands of LED lights on the outside of it that project different images from an eyeball to a wave to a moon, to scenes from U2 to other. Pretty much anything and everything that can be turned into an image can be projected through these LED lights. And on the inside it has hundreds, actually thousands, I think, of speakers inside the, I wish I knew all of the actual, I should have done my research on this to talk about it. But the sound system is so remarkable that even each seat has the capability to have sense infused into them. You can feel hot and cold in them. So if you go to see Darren Aronofsky, I think it's called Postcard from Earth, it's a movie that they did that was the first movie to be featured inside the sphere.
And the seats really do everything that I just mentioned. So you go into a winter scene and you feel chill, and they say supposedly that you can even infuse chocolate chip cookies smell, which I didn't experience, but I would've liked to have. So, but it was really life-changing to be able to see the multimedia really encompasses the entire spectrum all the way around 360 degrees and all the way up. And it can change from being what looks like a silo at the beginning of the show. And then towards the end of the show, it looks like an outdoor amphitheater. And then it has, I mean, it's just, yeah, I can't even explain how much it can do.
Leah Roseman:
Wow, that's really great. And you've done so many diverse and interesting performances over your career. So maybe I could ask you, for example, you've performed with Beyonce at the White House for President Obama. That must've been very memorable.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Yes, it's probably one of the greatest experiences of my life, honestly. And I felt very strongly about that particular time in our country's history. So it was especially rewarding to be able to meet the former president and Mrs. Obama and to be able to do a receiving line with them. And at the time, the Mexican president, his wife, who were the guests for that year, it was for the Second State dinner during his administration. And I had already played with Beyonceé a couple of times before that, but this was definitely the pinnacle of time with her and being able to back her up. And I think the official press photo that Pete Souza took that was printed the next day, ironically, was of the harp with me. And you couldn't tell it was me necessarily, but I knew it was me and the harp with her sitting on a stool. So that was pretty cool.
Leah Roseman:
Do you remember any of the songs that she performed that evening?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
I remember we did. Irreplaceable because I remember Sasha and Malia sitting on their mother's lap going to the left, to the left and doing the choreography to it. We played Halo. I remember Halo, gosh, it was 2010, so I'm not sure how many of those brain cells are still left.
Leah Roseman:
No, no, that's great. I was just curious.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
And in terms of playing rap, what was it, 2005, you got invited to do Live 8?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Live 8, yeah. That was really the start of all of the pop performances was getting that invitation to play for Live 8. Live 8, if people don't know was the 10 year anniversary of Live Aid, which is the worldwide concerts that Willie Nelson and some artists had put together for Farm Aid. And Live 8 was its counterpart 10 years later for the same reasons. And we were really lucky to, we played with Kanye West, we're premiering some of his songs. And that was also one of the most incredible experiences because we played on the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum and the crowds. There were millions of people, and you just looked out at the audience and it just went as far as you could see. And I had never in my life experienced being on a stage with that many people. So it was very memorable. Very memorable.
Leah Roseman:
So in terms of these different pop scenarios, are the harp arrangements good enough? Do you have to change things up when you get there?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
There's usually a part written out, and I sometimes embellish them and add some things in. We play with Jay-Z at Carnegie Hall a number of years ago for a benefit concert, and there was a part of the track that had a quiver in it that was probably done at a synth or something. It was just some little quiver thing. And I just started doing a quiver on the heart the way that we do them, which is hard to explain, but can be done. And they just freaked out and they were like, oh my God, you have to add that in and you have to add that in. So I have some creative license, I think, when I play with a lot of these artists. But in general, the charts are decent.
Leah Roseman:
Actually, I didn't ask you this before, but would you be willing to any sort of extended techniques on your harp?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Well, I can pull it towards you and show you what the quiver is, if that helps. It's basically just when you pluck a string and go,(music)
Leah Roseman:
Yeah,
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
So that's what it is. You just press it, press it between these mechanisms here and just move your thumb up and down.
Leah Roseman:
Are there other sort of non-traditional techniques you sometimes use in a pops sort of scenario?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Not particularly. I think in pops scenarios, the instrument is quite versatile, and that's probably one of the things that most people don't recognize or realize about the harp, but it's designated as a percussion instrument and it does have the capability to rock out a little bit, especially when it's amplified. So no, I don't think there's any particular extended techniques that are used in the pop scenario. It's more just making sure that what you're playing is responsive to the music that you're involved with. So
Leah Roseman:
I had one har player before you on this podcast, Destiny Mohammad, who's a jazz harpist based in San Francisco area. But I didn't ask her about the mechanics of the harp, which maybe I should, because most people don't realize how complicated it is, right?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
That's quite true. That's quite true. Well, without completely, I'm not sure how I can do this properly, but this is the front side of the harp. You can see that there are black strings and red strings, and they're set up like the white keys on a piano. So this is middle C, and it goes up in sequence with the notes of scale C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. The reason these are color coded is only to let you know where you are on the harp, because on the piano you have the luxury of black keys, which help you feel around for where you are. Whereas on the harp, if these were all the same color, you'd be lost. So this is not a training thing, it's on every single harp that the red strings are Cs, and the black strings are Fs. There's 47 strings from a low C base wire up into a very high G here.
And on the bottom of the harp, which is a little harder to show on camera, there are seven pedals. And the seven pedals are actually equivalent to the black keys on a piano. They do all of the sharps and the flats. And so there's one for every note of the scale. Again, C, D, E, F, G, A and B, and there's three notches. And so when the pedal is in the very top notch, it's in flat. When it's in the middle notch, it's in natural. And when it's in the bottom notch, it's in sharp. And essentially what that does, let's try this note right here. These mechanisms will move. Right now it's as loose as the string can be. It's in flat. It moves it an eighth of an inch here to make it natural, and then an eighth of an inch here to make it sharp. So it's a very, let's see, there are pedal rod. Those pedals connect to rods that go up the column of the harp, which is the tall part that you see, and then it connects to 2000 moving mechanisms that are in this curved neck. So everything inside here is mechanisms that are moving all the time.
Leah Roseman:
And if they have to be repaired, it has to be opened up, something that is there maintenance required.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Sometimes. They have to be what we call regulated every year, especially if you're a professional because they get a lot of wear and tear. They're like a car they depreciate. So unfortunately what'll happen is over time, the sounding board will start to raise and pull, which of course contorts the rest of the body and twist the neck up here. It's a high maintenance instrument for sure. I mean, the set of strings alone, if you had to replace all of them, is close to $700. You always have to have a full set on hand because you never know which one's going to break. And during the change of seasons, multiple ones will decide to break because the wood loves the humidity, the strings hate it. So it's really a constant upkeep, so to speak.
Leah Roseman:
So when you've been touring, you often you're playing on rental harps. Have you had an experience where it wasn't maintained properly or there were disasters and performance?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Yes, very rarely. And I will say that I'm very fortunate to have wonderful colleagues all over the world that have allowed me to use their instruments. However, I did play on a harp in Peru that was, they didn't have the resources to take care of it, and it was very clearly in need of a lot. I was playing a concerto solo there, and when I showed up, some of the strings were so afraid that I didn't even think they'd make it through the rehearsal, much less the performance. So I had to change a number of the strings prior to the performance. And that's always risky because it takes a while for them to settle. They don't go into, it's not like a violin or a guitar where you tune it, and it pretty much stays in tune once you've put the string on with the harp, because they're made of, most of them in the regions from the fourth to the second octave are gut, so they're pliable and you have to stretch 'em to make them stay in tune. So that was a little scary. It worked out to be fine, and the performance went well, but it was definitely probably the most dilapidated instrument I had ever played on in my life.
Leah Roseman:
It's interesting to me about the gut because of course, with violin, people who play original instrument style like Baroque, we'll use gut strings, but the rest of us have play more modern strings that have the properties of gut but are much more stable. That hasn't happened in the harp world,
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Not really. And I think the reason for that is that the gut really do produce that warmer sound. And so a lot of people will string their heart for the last two octaves in nylon. But for me, I only do the top octave in nylon because I want to get that warm sound as much as I can. The gut strings don't really make a difference when you're up this high for this last octave. So it's fine to use nylon on that octave, but for the rest of it's an octave down to the wire strings, it's all gut.
Leah Roseman:
You mentioned your experiences as a soloist. I was curious, do you have a couple of pieces that are your preferred pieces to play if you were going to play with orchestra?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Oh, with orchestra, yes. Well, my signature concerto is one that I've played with many, many orchestras, and that's the Castelnuovo-Tedesco concerto for Harp and chamber orchestra. It can be done with full orchestra as well. And I've played that, my goodness, all over in many, many places. So that's the one I love to play, and that's the one that I'm usually called to play as well.
Leah Roseman:
So speaking of composition, so you had your first album Around the Sun, so that was kind of your first foray into writing this ambient New age music
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Was, I had released a classical album back in 2001, and that was primarily just because I felt like I needed to do a record and do an album of something. But even then, I chose pieces that were more lullabies, eyes and classical pieces that were meant for stress relief and relaxation. So I think even back then, I knew that I wanted music, that I was recording to be in that genre, so to speak. And when I started composing my own music in 2019, it became just a goal of mine to be able to do a full album. And Around The Sun was the first album in 2020 in January of 2020 that I released of my own work.
Leah Roseman:
And you have another album of rock and pop covers that you've put out?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Yes, it's, it's called the Covers album, and it's basically some of my favorite songs that I've arranged for the harp. And I do sell most of my pop arrangements on Sheet Music Plus, and so people can find my arrangements for harp there.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I was going to ask about that because it was funny. When I went into YouTube, I found all these other people playing your arrangements when I looked at your name.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
That's great. That's great.
Leah Roseman:
Is there one of those that we could share that you think is really fun?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
I think the one that gets the most streams is Radiohead Creep.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. This final musical selection is an excerpt from Kirsten's arrangement of Radiohead's Creep.(music)
So did you listen to a lot of Radiohead or was that like a tune you just loved?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
No, I think it's just, it's what lays on the harp. Well, I mean, there are pieces, trust me, that people have asked for, even for weddings where I'm like, yeah, that doesn't really work. But a lot of it can be modified and a lot, as long as there's a solid melody to a piece, then it's possible to do an arrangement. It's when you have a lot of this same note melody or repetitive melodies that become a little challenging, which means that modern pop sometimes doesn't really apply too well. But at the same time, I figured out techniques of being able to use octave instead of playing a C over and over. I'll do a back and forth with an octave situation when I'm arranging. And yes, the pieces that I choose to arrange are pieces that I like to listen to, because if I'm playing them, it's because I like listening to them. So there's a wide range.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. I was wondering, have you done any Renaissance music, like lute music on the harp?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
No. Well, yes, probably as transcriptions back in Indiana.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. But not more recently. It seems there's a treasure trove there.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
I bet there is. I bet there is.
Leah Roseman:
I interviewed a wonderful Lutenist, Elizabeth Palett for this podcast, and she was saying there's just so much of this music that no one's recorded yet. It's all in Tablature though, right? So you have to be able to, that'd be complicated. As a harpist,
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
That's a learning curve. Well, maybe somewhere down the line, I'll be ready to take that on.
Leah Roseman:
We were talking earlier about mentoring younger generation and that they need to learn certain kind of business skills and to be more broad in their thinking in terms of their identity as musicians. You mentioned some of the advice you gave people in terms of your harp students, like learning different skills as harpists. But in terms of other aspects, social media or just the way you present yourself, do you have other advice you give young musicians?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
I think networking, and one thing that even from my own life I've been able to draw on is to never burn a bridge. You never know when you're going to run across that same person down the line in a totally different place or whatever. So I think the networking is, and making sure that you're always open to new opportunities. Don't say no to things, especially when you're first coming out of school. I think it's really important to say yes, because you never know who you're going to meet in any given situation. And the more that you meet people, the more that there's potential recommendations for other work, not to mention potential collaboration. I think I wish that I had started the composing earlier because it has introduced me to so many new people and introduced me to, in this current time, Grammy other recording Academy people. And I've developed amazing friendships with some of these artists and have potential future collaborations with some of these artists. So I think that's one of the major things that I would encourage young people to recognize is making sure you, yeah, networking, making sure you know people and meet people.
Leah Roseman:
Kirsten, just to close this out, maybe you could reflect on just young Kirsten as a 13 year old, looking back on your early life as a harpist, what she would've thought of your career now.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Oh my goodness. I don't think my 13 year old self could have ever imagined the different paths that my career has taken and how many diverse experiences I've been offered. And I think that 13 year old would be in awe of what I've been able to do as an adult. I'm very grateful that I've been able to balance my professional life between the classical and the modern pop because I love them both, and I think it's been an amazing, amazing journey to see which paths I've walked down and taken.
Leah Roseman:
That's beautiful. There's just one thing that occurred to me that I didn't ask you that I was curious about in terms of performance nerves. Have you had, because often you mentioned performing for so many people, these huge crowds, or maybe you're playing by ear without charts, others, are there experiences that have been more nerve wracking?
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
That actually doesn't make me nervous at all. In fact, I've always said that I prefer to play for thousands of people than for three people. So I did have a lot of stage nerves when I was doing solo recitals. Part of the reason that I stopped doing that was primarily because the reward was not enough for me to do all of that preparation and to feel that anxiety before walking on a stage. I've never been able to really teach how to get over stage nerves, with the exception of teaching memorization skills, which I think are extremely important to alleviate nerves, which isn't to say that I didn't feel prepared when I was playing. I think it was more that I hadn't developed a sense of self, self-assurance in life in general to be able to walk on stage by myself and sit behind my instrument and play. And I did do it, and I was very successful at it, but I didn't necessarily enjoy it. And I think that was a learning experience for me to move on from doing that and find other ways of soloing in other paths.
Leah Roseman:
Super interesting. Well, thanks so much for this today.
Kirsten Agresta Copely:
Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. It's been a delight to talk with you.
Leah Roseman:
I hope you enjoyed this episode. There's such a fascinating variety to life and music and this series features wonderful musicians worldwide with in-depth conversations and great music. With over a hundred episodes to explore, many episodes feature guests playing music spontaneously as part of the episode, or sharing performances and albums. I hope that the inspiration and connection found in a meaningful creative life, the challenges faced and the stories from such a diversity of artists will draw you into this weekly series with many topics that will resonate with all listeners. Please share your favorite episodes with your friends and do consider supporting this independent podcast. The link is in the description. Have a great week.
