Capitola’s Jennifer Cass on the good vibrations of the harp
Jennifer Cass lives in a rambling Capitola house with four cats and five harps. The harps are the point here. With a full-time day job as chair of the Cabrillo College math department, the high-energy Southern California native is also a sought-after freelance musician on the Monterey Bay area performance circuit. Her specialty is the pedal harp, a large and beautiful instrument with a celestial sound. The 47 strings on Cass’ favorite French pedal harp represent the white keys on the piano. Where are the black keys?, I wonder. “The sharps and flats are created by the seven pedals,” Cass says with a grin, pointing to the back of the harp. Ever since I heard Cass’ astonishing accompaniment for the UCSC Concert Choir performance of Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, I have wanted to get a closer look. Hmm, I hadn’t actually noticed the pedals up close before.
The contemporary pedal harp is rather like a cross between a programmable piano and a guitar. The ability to change pitch with foot pedals allows the harpist’s hands to keep busy with all of those sweeping glissandi and intricately plucked chords. The entire body is engaged.
Cass was hooked the day she took a break from her youthful piano studies to try out a neighbor’s harp. “That was one of the happiest moments of my life,” she recalls. Being practical, she pursued both a master’s degree in harp performance at the Eastman School of Music, as well as a master’s in mathematics at UCSC. She has taught at Cabrillo College ever since, while performing as a soloist and with ensembles at UCSC, symphony orchestras down the coast and over the hill, as well as with New Music Works and Santa Cruz Chamber Players.
The harp feels luscious to play. “You actually wrap your body around the instrument, cradling it against your shoulders,” says Cass, demonstrating. “But it’s hard on the back and shoulders,” she admits. Raising her arms in billowing movements, she plucks the strings. “The gestures are part of the musical imagery,” she says. And the sound reverberates long after the hands have left the strings. The musical repertoire for her complicated instrument flowered during the French Impressionist era—“Debussy and Ravel wrote huge orchestral works for harp,” Cass says. Today, there’s a growing popular repertoire for harp as a solo and ensemble instrument. Jazz and electronic harps are expanding the domain of this much-loved string instrument.
“It’s a compelling sound,” she says. “I think it has something to do with the vibrations.” The harp, it turns out, is “very big in healing—therapeutic harp, the chakras,” she says. I begin to connect those dots.
“Playing the harp has given me confidence. It’s very difficult and it requires incredible focus,” Cass says. “When I am in concert, and let myself simply go with the music, I am completely immersed in that moment. It’s an opportunity for focus and self-discipline. After 30 years, I can play pretty well.”
The full-size harps weigh 80 pounds or so. Who carts it around? “I do.” She takes me out to her mini-van and shows me the special cradle in the back that holds the harp. She carries it in and out of the van with a large dolly. “I do it all.”
Obviously, Christmas is a harpist’s busiest season. Also spring, when Cass performs with many local groups, and for private gigs. “I do a lot of weddings and small cocktail parties. I did “Let it Go” from Frozen at a reception last week. People loved it.”
“I’m a little superstitious about concert attire,” she says, grinning again. “I’m very practical. I wear the same shoes when I perform, with a slight heel but one that is very stable. I usually wear a long skirt, or more likely pants, although I’ve seen people play the harp in short skirts and spike heels.” She wears three-quarter sleeves so they don’t get into the strings. No jewelry. And there’s a pre-concert nail-trimming ritual. The pattern-intensity of music and math suits Jennifer Cass. “I’m happy doing what I’m doing.”
PHOTO: Jennifer Cass with her harp, which weighs about 80 pounds. CHIP SCHEUER
