Jan
Christensen is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she
studied harp with Marilyn Costello. She has performed with the
Philadelphia Orchestra both in Philadelphia and at Carnegie Hall, and
has also played with the Philadelphia Opera Company, the Pennsylvania
Ballet, and the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia.
Principal Harpist with the New
Zealand Symphony Orchestra for seven years, she served also as a
National Artist with the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand, and as
Professor of Harp at Victoria University of Wellington. She was a
founding member of the Harp Society of New Zealand.
From New Zealand she traveled to
Brussels, Belgium, where she studied at the Royal Conservatory under
Suzanna Mildonian, and was awarded the First Prize with Distinction.
While in Brussels she was a frequent recitalist, and gave the premiere
of a new composition by Elizabeth Anderson at the American Embassy.
At home again in the U.S., she has
continued with solo, chamber and orchestral work, in addition to
teaching. She has played with the Milwaukee Symphony, the Trenton
Symphony, the Delaware Symphony, and the Bay-Atlantic Symphony among
others, and has appeared in recital at the Lincoln Center Library, the
American Harp Society of Philadelphia, Haverford College, Bryn Mawr
College, Swarthmore College, Middlebury College and others.
Recently established in Buffalo, New
York, Ms. Christensen remains active as performer and teacher. She is
harpist at Corpus Christi Church.
All inquiries are welcome. For those
interested in lessons, demonstrations will be offered on both the full
sized concert harp and the small lever harp. The lever harp is a very
approachable instrument of 29 strings, and most students and their
families find that it helps them to make a good beginning. A number of
these small harps are available for rent.
“Give
thanks to the Lord on the harp; with the ten-stringed lyre chant his
praises. Sing to him a new song; pluck the strings skillfully, with shouts
of gladness.”