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Anna Maria Mendieta is a professional harpist from the United States. She is best known for pioneering the harp as a contemporary tango instrument. She is the founder, artistic director, and harpist for Tango del Cielo, an award-winning album and international touring show.
Anna Maria Mendieta is a distinguished harpist currently serving as the principal harpist for the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera. She previously held the position of principal harpist at the Women's Philharmonic for nearly two decades. Her versatility and talent have also seen her featured as an instrumentalist for several seasons with Theater Flamenco of San Francisco.
Performance Highlights Mendieta has performed with a wide array of symphony orchestras both in the United States and internationally. Some of the ensembles she has worked with include:
Recognition and Achievements In 2007, Anna Maria Mendieta gained international recognition as a pioneer in her field. She was celebrated by the League of American Orchestras as an "exceptional soloist" for being the first harpist to perform the first Argentine tango concerto ever written. This accolade underscores her innovative contributions to the world of harp music and her ability to bridge classical and contemporary genres.
Influence and Legacy Mendieta's career is marked by her highly regarded skill and versatility, making significant contributions to both classical and modern music. Her pioneering work with the Argentine tango concerto has opened new avenues for the harp, expanding its repertoire and influence in contemporary music.
Mendieta has been recognized internationally as an innovator in the world of harp and has helped create a new genre for the instrument.[ citation needed ] Mendieta considered the harp a perfect vehicle for tango, and has since spent years advocating for the form. In the 1990s, Mendieta became fascinated with Argentine tango but quickly discovered that there was no music for the harp. Argentine tradition set apart "classical" instruments like the harp from the genre (the harp was used only for glissando effects in the 1930s). After many years of collecting tango music written for other instruments, she created her own arrangements and invented a new technique, one that allowed the harp to execute the difficult chromatic passages and percussive effects that characterize tango music. She was introduced to close friends and colleagues of the late tango composer Astor Piazzolla. Piazzolla had created Nuevo Tango (a sub-genre that combined tango and jazz with modern classical), so by working with Piazzolla's closest colleagues and artistic collaborators, Mendieta has created a new vision for tango and harp.
Mendieta studied tango (the dance) and quickly realized her passion for both art forms. Mendieta's "Harp-Tango" project has developed into a multimedia touring concert-show called "Tango Del Cielo." The show presents a fusion of tango and flamenco with a tribute to the silent films. Mendieta's Tango Del Cielo show was the featured show at the 2019 World Tango Festival in Victoria, Canada.
The Tango Del Cielo for Harp & Orchestra has won 9 international awards, including 4 Global Music Awards, and reached #2 on Billboard's Classical Crossover Charts.[ citation needed ]
Mendieta was born and raised in San Francisco, California to a Spanish and Latin American family. Her parents played a number of musical instruments and encouraged their seven children to learn an instrument at a young age and to study music, art, and dance. She first played the harp at the age of seven, when she began studying the Salzedo method at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of the Israeli harpist Efrat Zaklad.
She continued her studies at San Francisco State University and at Stanford University with Marjorie Chauvel and graduated with honors from Notre Dame de Namur University with a bachelor's degree in music. She has also studied privately with the San Francisco Symphony’s principal harpist Doug Rioth and with widely regarded harpist Alice Chalifoux at the Salzedo Harp Colony in Camden, Maine. [1] [2] [3] [4]
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Global Music Awards - Anna Maria Mendieta - Tango Del Cielo Album 2022 Bronze Medal for Best Music Video "Oblivion" (with filmmaker Cristian Pablo Ardito, Libres Del Mundo Productions) 2021 Silver Medalist for Best Album "Tango Del Cielo" 2021 Silver Medal - Best Instrumentalist 2021 Silver Medal - Editing & Mixing "Tango Del Cielo" Album
Clouzine International Music Awards 2022 - Best Music Video "Oblivion" (with filmmaker Cristian Pablo Ardito, Libres Del Mundo Productions) 2020 Best Classical Crossover Album - "Tango Del Cielo" Album 2020 Best Music Video "Libertango" (Libres Del Mundo Productions)
LIT International Talent Awards 2021 Most Artistic Music Video "Oblivion" 2021 Best Show "Tango Del Cielo"
2013 American Harp Society Grant Commission recipient for a concerto to be composed for her.
Mendieta is the only harpist to have twice received the "Matz Memorial Award" from Lyon & Healy Harp Company for "Outstanding Achievement".
Played for:
Celebrity Concert Performances:
| Release date | Album | Label |
|---|---|---|
| October 27, 1993 | Enchanted Christmas – Harp & New Chamber Ensemble | Sugo Records |
| November 19, 1996 | Broadway Center Stage | Sugo Records |
| October 10, 1998 | An Acoustic Christmas | Sugo Records |
| November 9, 1999 | Christmas Angels: A Sugo Holiday Collection (by various artists) | Sugo Records |
| August 21, 2020 | Tango Del Cielo | Anna Maria Mendieta (self-published) |
Also featured on: "Around the World" National Geographic Music Series – "Serenity, Songs of Peace and Enlightenment" (National Geographic & Sugo Music Label) Musae - Women's Ensemble "Songs of the Southwest" Pacific Boy Choir - "O Holy Night" (2012) Rejoice! - The Young Women's Chorus of San Francisco (2016) Titanes Del Trombones - Doug Beavers, Trombone (2018 Grammy Winner)
Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer, bandoneon player, and arranger. His works revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music. A virtuoso bandoneonist, he regularly performed his own compositions with a variety of ensembles. In 1992, American music critic Stephen Holden described Piazzolla as "the world's foremost composer of Tango music".
The music of Argentina includes a variety of traditional, classical, and popular genres. According to the Harvard Dictionary of Music, Argentina also "has one of the richest art music traditions and perhaps the most active contemporary musical life."
Tango is a style of music in 2
4 or 4
4 time that originated among European and African immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay. It is traditionally played on a solo guitar, guitar duo, or an ensemble, known as the orquesta típica, which includes at least two violins, flute, piano, double bass, and at least two bandoneóns. Sometimes guitars and a clarinet join the ensemble. Tango may be purely instrumental or may include a vocalist. Tango music and dance have become popular throughout the world.
Argentine tango is a musical genre and accompanying social dance originating at the end of the 19th century in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. It typically has a 2
4 or 4
4 rhythmic time signature, and two or three parts repeating in patterns such as ABAB or ABCAC. Its lyrics are marked by nostalgia, sadness, and laments for lost love. The typical orchestra has several melodic instruments and is given a distinctive air by the bandoneon. It has continued to grow in popularity and spread internationally, adding modern elements without replacing the older ones. Among its leading figures are the singer and songwriter Carlos Gardel and composers/performers Francisco Canaro, Juan D'Arienzo, Carlos Di Sarli, Osvaldo Pugliese, Elvira Santamaría, and Ástor Piazzolla.
Al-Andalus Ensemble is a husband and wife musical duo that performed contemporary Andalusi music. The ensemble featured Tarik Banzi playing oud, ney and darbuka, and Julia Banzi on flamenco guitar.
Dorothy Jeanne Thompson, better known as Dorothy Ashby, was an American jazz harpist, singer and composer. Hailed as one of the most "unjustly under loved jazz greats of the 1950s" and the "most accomplished modern jazz harpist," Ashby established the harp as an improvising jazz instrument, beyond earlier use as a novelty or background orchestral instrument, proving the harp could play bebop as adeptly as the instruments commonly associated with jazz, such as the saxophone or piano.
Charles Moïse Léon Salzedo was a French harpist, pianist, composer and conductor. His compositions presented the harp as a virtuoso instrument. He influenced many composers with his new ideas for the harp's sounds, and was influential in New York's new music scene through his work leading the International Composers' Guild with Edgard Varèse.
The pedal harp is a large and technologically modern harp, designed primarily for use in art music. It may be played solo, as part of a chamber ensemble, or in an orchestra. It typically has 47 strings with seven strings per octave, giving a range of six and a half octaves.
Octavio Brunetti was a pianist, arranger and composer from Argentina. He was best known for his participation in the album Te amo tango by Raul Jaurena, which won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Tango Album in 2007, and was one of the most sought after tango pianists.
Estrella Morente is a Spanish flamenco singer. She was born on 14 August 1980 in Las Gabias, Granada in southern Spain. She is the daughter of flamenco singer Enrique Morente and dancer Aurora Carbonell.
Lavinia Meijer is a South Korean-born Dutch harpist. Her concerts have included a solo harp evening at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Anna-Maria Yordanova Ravnopolska-Dean, born 3 August 1960, Sofia, Bulgaria, is a Bulgarian and American harpist, composer, pedagogue, musicologist and TV host.
Maria Krushevskaya is a virtuoso Russian harpist. She was the gold medalist of the 2007 USA International Harp Competition, where she was awarded the Jan Jennings Prize for best performance of Pierné's Concertstück for Harp and Orchestra, the Mary L. Ogg Prize for best performance of Küne's Fantaisie sur un theme de l’opera Eugene Onegin, and best performance of Alvars' Introduction and Variations on Themes from Bellini's Opera Norma. Maria Krushevskaya was born in Moscow in 1984 in a family of musicians. She began to study music at the age of five. In 1992 she entered the Moscow Gnessin School of Music, graduating with distinction in 2002 and subsequently continued her studies at the Gnesins’ Russian Academy of Music from which she also graduated with distinction in 2008.
Alice Chalifoux was the principal harpist with the Cleveland Orchestra from 1931 to 1974 and was its only female member for twelve years. Chalifoux learned to play the harp from her mother, studying music at local schools before studying under Carlos Salzedo at the Curtis Institute of Music. She was an authority on his music and took over the Salzedo Summer Harp Colony after his death. She had a reputation as a specialist in orchestral harp technique and a master teacher. She taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and the Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music. She continued teaching harp until her death in 2008, at the age of 100. Chalifoux received two honorary degrees for her work. In her personal life, Chalifoux married John Gordon Rideout in 1937 and had one daughter.
Lucile Lawrence was a leader among American harpists. At the end of her life, she was actively teaching as a faculty member of Boston University and the Manhattan School of Music as well as teaching privately.
Libertango is a composition by tango composer and bandoneon player Astor Piazzolla, recorded and published in 1974 in Milan. The title is a portmanteau merging "Libertad" and "tango", symbolizing Piazzolla's break from classical tango to tango nuevo.
Antonio Agri was an Argentine violinist, composer and conductor prominent in both the tango and classical music genres.
Valérie Milot is a Canadian harpist born in the province of Quebec. In 2008, she became the first harpist to win the prestigious Prix d’Europe. Ms Milot is renowned for her mature musical instinct as well as for the strength and the refinement of her interpretations. Her first recording, called « Révélation », was released in October 2009.
Madison Calley is an American harpist. Calley, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, gained mass exposure and notoriety through the creation of viral covers of contemporary music performed on her harp. Calley has become credited as one of few musicians actively breaking barriers and broadening the scope of inclusion within the classical space.
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