3 minute read
Harp
harp lessons was something Johnson and her mom used to do together. But something clicked around the time she was 10.
“I remember falling in love with music when I was a preteen,” Johnson says.
Learning to play the piano was part of the musical romance. Johnson learned songs from the 2005 film adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” starring Keira Knightley, and the Broadway show “Wicked.”
On the classical front, French composer Claude Debussy, known for such works as “La Mer,” “Clair de Lune” and “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” became a favorite.
Despite her newfound avocation, Johnson remained devoted to her primary instrument.
“The harp was my medium,” she says. The budding musician did try her hand at sports in high school but dropped basketball after a year to focus on her music.
A MUSICAL MENTOR
At Brigham Young University in Utah, she earned a bachelor’s degree in music before heading east to attend the New England Conservatory in Boston for a master’s degree. It was there that she studied one-onone with the teacher who became her mentor, Jessica Zhou.
While at NEC, Johnson was selected as the school’s featured artist and performed the Mozart Concerto for Flute & Harp with the NEC Symphony in January 2020. She graduated in 2022 and won the position of principal harpist in Sarasota in fall 2022.
Her tutelage under Zhou and challenging auditions have opened up doors for Johnson at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where Zhou has been principal harpist since the 2009-10 season, and at summer festivals presented by Tanglewood Music Center, where Zhou is a faculty member.
“She was exactly what I needed,”
Johnson says of Zhou, with whom she’ll be playing alongside in Boston later this year after performing
“A Hero’s Life” with the Sarasota Orchestra from March 31-April 2. Johnson has been a regular substitute for the Boston Symphony since 2021.
But it’s her new, permanent position in Sarasota that she’s most grateful for. “This was my goal — winning a principal harp job and getting paid a salary to play harp with an orchestra,” she says. “It’s such an honor. I worked hard to get here. The audition process was so difficult. I got lucky. I’m really humbled.”
Still, Johnson makes it clear that her musical journey is far from over.
“In no terms have I arrived,” she says.
“I’m learning new things. I’m getting more experience as a team player and learning to be a sensitive accompanist,” she adds. Although she has dedicated her life to classical music, Johnson isn’t a snob when it comes to popular culture. “Sometimes you just want to kick back and watch ‘Finding Nemo’ and sometimes you want to watch
‘Schindler’s List,’” she says. “I think music is the same way.” When Johnson works out, she listens to The Weeknd and Chris Rock, she says.
‘HARP, CHOCOLATE, BUT MOST OF ALL BEN’ Johnson says she isn’t one of “those TikTok harp players,” but she does maintain a social media presence with her website, HarpFreak.com. However, she’s not online as much as she used to be when she was younger
IF YOU GO ‘A HERO’S LIFE’
When: March 31-April 2
Where: Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall Tickets: $37-$99 Info: Visit SarasotaOrchestra. org and not working full time as a musician.
The Sarasota Orchestra performs this piece, Strauss’s thinly veiled musical autobiography of his greatest hits, as part of its last Masterworks program of the season.
Her Instagram profile says she loves the “harp, chocolate, but most of all Ben,” her husband of seven years. Right now, Johnson and her husband are having a long-distance relationship, but she hopes he will be able to join her full-time in Florida when he pursues an MBA.
Although many artists end up marrying fellow performers, Johnson says she likes that her husband doesn’t share her profession.
“Spending the day in different worlds gives us something to talk about when we come together at dinner,” she says.
While female musicians dominate the harp, Johnson likens the instrument to a bow and arrow and says it doesn’t just provide background music for tea parties, “although I’ve played plenty of those.”
In fact, Johnson says her musical hero is a man: Emmanuel Ceysson, the harpist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic known for his signature red instrument.
Asked to define her goal in life, Johnson describes it in general terms: “To always be improving and striving to be excellent.”
But what about Carnegie Hall? Thanks to all those years of “practice, practice, practice,” Johnson has already performed there with the Boston Symphony. She can cross that musical milestone off her list.
