Music for Harp

Bookended by two works by composer Lou Harrison, Karen Gottlieb’s Music for Harp is a tribute to four mid-20th century new music composers of the San Francisco Bay Area. Both individually and as a group, the compositions reflect elements from the cultures of Southeast Asia, India, “The Silk Road” and Europe.

Gottlieb was raised by artistic parents — her father a classical musician, scholar and ethnomusicologist and her mother an architect. Growing up in India and Europe, her home was frequented by artists from Paul Hindemith and Darius Milhaud to Ravi Shankar and Zakir Hussain.

Her friendship with Harrison began in 1980 and she has performed and recorded his orchestral, chamber and choral works, including “Music for Harp” for a 1994 documentary, “Building A Dream,” about the design and construction of a home by Gottlieb’s architect mother, Lois Davidson Gottlieb.  The music was subsequently used in the film by Eva Soltes "Lou Harrison: A World of Music". 

Other works on the album are a riveting dialogue between flute and harp, Colloquy, by Pulitzer-Prize winning composer Wayne Peterson; a Satiesque 1948 John Cage favorite, In a Landscape; and composer-cellist Dan Reiter, whose Sonata for Flute and Harp evokes duets from around the world such as shakuhachi and koto, sarod and tabla.

Gottlieb has performed with the San Francisco Symphony for more than two decades as second harpist. In addition, Ms. Gottlieb is the Principal Harpist for The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and performs regularly with other Northern California new music groups — Opera Parallèle, Earplay, Empyrean and Left Coast Ensembles. She has recorded regularly with the Skywalker Recording Symphony and substituted with the San Francisco Opera and Ballet orchestras. For twenty years she served as Principal Harpist with the California Symphony and performed as a member of the San Francisco Symphony “AIM” ensembles, including 4 Sounds, Strings & Things, THAT! Group and Silver & Gold, Plus.