Bonjour from Switzerland! My name is Phoebe, I’m 23 years old, and I’m studying ancient harp at the Haute école de musique de Genève, which is a music school in Geneva. Before I tell you more about Switzerland, I’ll tell you how I got here.
I went to Oberlin, which is a small liberal arts school in Ohio. Oberlin has a normal college program, but it also has a conservatory which is a specialized school for music. I played modern harp in the conservatory, and I got a minor in music history. I also played a lot of folk music and taught community engagement through gamelan, which is music from Indonesia! I found an ancient harp hidden away in a locked room in the conservatory, and I taught myself how to play it a little bit. In my senior year, I applied for a Fulbright scholarship to study ancient harp in Geneva, because so few people in the world play ancient harp that there is nobody in the United States who teaches it! Western Classical music has such a long history in Europe, so I was very excited to study ancient music where it all began. I really enjoy researching music as much as I enjoy playing it, and I’m especially interested in female composers from a long time ago because they existed, but nobody knows about them!
