Watch Bridget Kibbey play David Bruce’s “Caja de Musica” at (Le) Poisson Rouge on February 14, 2010, part of Metropolis Ensemble’s benefit concert “Love Letter to Haiti”:
This is an excerpt from the program notes by Metropolis harpist Bridget Kibbey, providing some background on the upcoming Resident Artist Series concert, Music Box.
Two summers ago, I flew to France to visit friends in Brittany. Winding our way down the coast, we discovered Lorient, a town bustling with some of the best Celtic talent from Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and of course, Brittany - all coming together for the Festival Interceltique de Lorient. What a find!!
Aside from drinking great beer and listening to fabulous bands, we spent every night joining hundreds of local Bretons, packed into massive halls to dance to traditional pipers or bands in large circles, arm-in-arm. With each new reel or change in the music, the locals instinctively changed their steps to a new regional dance. I was in shock.
Citizens of all ages knew these complicated steps, and joyously danced away the nights, celebrating their region. I was schooled by the eighty-three-year-old woman to my right wearing stilettos. With a proud gleam in her eye, she firmly grasped my arm, yelling “Comme ca!!”
With sore feet and a heavy dose of whimsy, I walked away from the festival having witnessed folk music and dance as powerful means to creating and celebrating one’s community…
I came home with this music fresh in my ears and decided to try my hand at arranging a couple reels- Templehouse and Mountain Road. But, more than that, I decided to create a project that would showcase some of the folk music of some of my very own NYC neighbors: composers born in other countries who have immigrated to the United States, weaving their rich cultural backgrounds into the American fabric.
My hope was two-fold: that audiences would have a whimsical taste of these cultures, much like my experience in Brittany; and two, using their own folk heritage as a springboard, that each composer would stretch the boundaries of the harp, creating new solo works for the instrument. This is Music Box!
I hope you enjoy encountering the harp and each of these cultures as much as I have, and thank you for joining me for the concert. I’d like to offer my sincerest gratitude to Andrew Cyr and Metropolis Ensemble for collaborating with me to present this project, to each of the composers for their incredible contributions, to Concert Artists Guild, and to all my friends and fans who have supported and encouraged me in my musical endeavors and beyond.