Today we’d like to introduce you to Laurel Buchanan.
Hi Laurel, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My story begins at Bethesda Chapel in Savannah, GA. At the age of 10 years old, I was a flower girl at my uncle’s wedding and witnessed a harp in person for the first time. I can remember during the ceremony my grandmother leaning over to me and asking me if I would ever want to learn how to play the harp.
I told her yes. Later that year for Christmas, my grandmother bought me a lap-sized harp and offered to pay for harp lessons! I was very fortunate to have multiple sponsors during the years who helped me finance music lessons, music equipment, and instruments.
Fast forward eleven years and four harp sizes later, I have finished my bachelor’s degree in music performance with a concentration in harp. I now perform around the Atlanta area at weddings, concerts, parties, and occasionally am featured as a guest soloist on a television show.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There were so many times when I wanted to quit. Sometimes, I would go into my practice room at home and just want to pack up the harp and sell it. The discipline that came with practicing my harp made life difficult to process at a young age. The harp used to feel like my enemy, as well as my friend. I would tell people that it was a love-hate relationship.
As an enemy, the harp would keep me stuck indoors, unable to play with my friends that I could see playing outside the window. As much as I wanted to become successful as a musician, I also wanted to make sure I did not miss out on my life as a normal child. Becoming a professional musician is a mental game, one that you have to learn how to work through. It was not until I started auditioning for colleges and beginning my degree as a harpist, that I realized how much I enjoyed what I did and realized how hard work and precise practice can pay off.
Working towards a specific goal made practicing way more fun and something that I genuinely wanted to do. In this case, performing in front of an audience and being able to create the music that I grew up listening to while playing alongside my friends, was the reward.
Other struggles along the way included the financing of my current concert-grand-sized harp, which I bought on a loan basis and worked three jobs at once in order to pay it off, which I was able to complete in less than 2 years.
As playing the harp takes its own special technique, the transportation of the harp also has its own. When I play for gigs or other events, it requires me to bring along an assistant in order to get the harp in and out of the car, as well as carrying around other necessities such as a music stand, bench, or folders of music. When you see the instrument, you do not always think of all the requirements that come with it.
Not only does it take an assistant, but also a car big enough for the instrument to go into, a dolly to move the harp around with, a customized case to protect it, and then hopefully not dealing with a lot of stairs when reaching the destination. Sometimes, venues only have gravel rock pathways or flights of stairs which can make moving the harp rather tricky.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I consider myself an event musician and am from the Atlanta area. I am known for my attention to detail, my promptness, being a natural performer, and the music I specialize in. For the most part, I focus on playing for weddings but have also played for other events such as parties, funerals, and local television shows. Not only do I play the harp, but I am also trained classically in voice. Clients can hire me for singing, harp, or both in the same event.
I do not have any original music as of right now, but I love covering artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Michael Buble, Doris Day, Nat King Cole, etc. When playing for weddings, these songs are heard mainly in the cocktail hour or during the reception. I make sure to learn how to play certain songs as well as sing them, that way if I need to, I can sing and play at the same time. I love performing classical, older famous pop songs from the 1940s, and jazz.
By having completed my music degree at Kennesaw State University, I sometimes get requests for an instrumental duet and can bring along a second instrumentalist along for an extra fee. I have played with a violin, cello, and flute.
One thing I am most proud of is my on-stage performance collaboration as a featured soloist with a group of percussionists. One member of the percussion studio composed a concerto specifically for harp and percussion. His piece of music was what he called a “battle of the sexes,” where he had the girl percussionists on one side of the stage, the guys on the other, and the harp in the middle to represent a mediator between the two. Throughout the piece, the girls would play, the guys would respond, and vice versa.
The harp would then try to calm the two down with its own solo movements. The percussion studio’s teacher, John Lawless, who conducted the piece and also plays percussion for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, originally had the idea for the collaboration and I never would have had that opportunity had it not been for him. (You can see this performance on my YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L9aFJASG5E)
When I was seventeen, I had the opportunity to perform for and be interviewed by gospel singer/songwriter, Babbie Mason, on her TV Show segment, “Babbie’s House.
During Covid, a local restaurant owner in Roswell, GA had turned his restaurant, Table, and Main, into what he called “Table and Aid.” While the restaurant remained closed, the kitchen remained open and made daily meals for those who were food insecure. Donations came in all forms in order to keep his idea going, whether it was through local farms donating food, or the local community giving money towards the cause. The owner, Ryan Pernice, wanted to give back to the community somehow, which is where the harp came in.
As a volunteer, I brought my instrument into an empty dining room filled with food supplies and played a live virtual concert on Facebook to bring some happiness and relaxation to those who watched. I loved being able to be a part of something big, something that could lift people’s spirits during a time of uncertainty in just a few minutes.
My most recent wedding gig, however, was located at the Perry Lane Hotel in Savannah, GA. The client had found my flyer in a coffee shop in north Atlanta and was able to contact and hire me for his wedding. This wedding adventure was one of the biggest jobs I have ever done. The bride’s friend specifically wrote a piece of music for the harp to accompany a vocalist as she walked down the aisle for the ceremony.
Altogether I played for the pre-ceremony, ceremony, cocktail hour, and the reception, all on a rooftop terrace that overlooked the city. It was a gorgeous experience in such a dreamy coastal town.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
You can support me and my small business by following and/or subscribing to my online platforms such as Instagram @atlanta_harpist and YouTube. My Instagram has a collection of previous event pictures and videos, while my Youtube Channel has a collection of singing and harp performances that could always use more views!
Being noticed on online platforms is just as important as being seen performing in person. Networking and referrals are also extremely important. You can refer or connect with me directly through my email, LinkedIn, or my website, especially if you are looking for an event musician for your own event!
I love having the chance to perform/collaborate with other musicians or for brands. I recently have begun making vlog videos that showcase behind the scenes of me traveling and working as an event musician. I can work as a featured soloist, or as a background instrumentalist. This can include many avenues such as jazz bands, film score orchestras, recording studios, a church soloist, etc. I also like to collaborate and work with wedding coordinators or specific venues in need of an event musician contact.
I am also hoping to begin a project of recording an album of my work. Donations would be greatly appreciated and can be done directly through Venmo @Laurel-Buchanan-1.
Contact Info:
- Email: mylovelyharp@gmail.com
- Website: https://www.singingharpist.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atlanta_harpist/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMcDurM9MN4Kfje2y9ogM6A
Image Credits
Patrick Rogers and Debbie Wyatt
