Harp

Alice Davis is a Junior at Drew Charter School. Alice is a member of the Urban Youth Harp Ensemble and has been studying for 3 years in the harp education program at Drew. Alice has so far performed in several events, including six bi-annual UYHE concerts and two end-of-program recitals for the Blue Lake harp intensive program. Incredibly dedicated to advancement, Alice jumped to the advanced class in the second semester of her second year of harp. One contributor to her fast progression was her time at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, which is a two-week intensive program where students closely study music theory, harp history, learn good techniques, and learn how to play in an orchestra setting. At the end of the program in 2023, Alice performed with her harp peers in Blue Lake’s MasterWorks Orchestra, performing the Firebird Suite by Igor Stranvinsky. This experience carried her into success in the Georgia Music Educators Association Solo and Ensemble Competitions, winning seven Superior medals across 4 competitions. Also with the GMEA, Alice participated in an ensemble performance at their yearly educator's conference in Athens.

In addition to the harp, Alice is an avid reader, writer, singer, and performer. She documents her life through poetry, which she publishes online, and is also a Governor's Honors Program finalist for communicative arts. She is passionate about bike activism, and commutes to school on a RAD E-Bike every day. She hopes to study history, literature, and music in her future.

GMEA Conference Performance

Practical Harpist Project

In this project, we prepared for a career in harp gigging by preparing business cards, a biography, headshots, and sample contracts for a gig. This process also gave us extra information on taxes as a self-employed musician, how to network with other musicians, and how to manage a contract. As a part of this project, we recorded a performance of a piece of our choice in order to display repertoire to potential clients.

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Semester Concerts

Pop Song Arrangement Project

For this project, we were tasked with choosing a song freely to arrange on the harp utilizing our knowledge of chord theory. For this project I chose "Red Wine Supernova" by Chappell Roan. "Red Wine Supernova" was one of the singles for Chappell Roan’s hit 2023 album “Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess”. As in much of Roan’s music, the feel is upbeat and high energy, with only small sections of the song slowing to a ballad-like tempo. “Red Wine Supernova” explores the theme of queerness through the lens of the “night out” so glorified by the young adult. Roan refers to a single muse throughout the song, putting her on a pedestal as a thing she shouldn’t have, but wants very badly. In the process of arranging the song, I found a lot of difficulty in replicating the instrumentals by way of editing my vocals on top of a harp track, so instead I took a different approach altogether and simplified the harp part to sing the vocals live on top of it. Though I could not get a fully perfect take, I feel the one I chose most fully encompassed by efforts to maintain the feel of the original track.

Alice Davis - Untitled May 19, 2024, 835PM.m4a

Sophmore Intermediate Showcase

Mock Wedding Project

Me: Ceremony and Recessional

Imari: Processional

Mattie: Prelude

In my group's wedding I performed an excerpt of "Golden Swallowtail" for the ceremony and "A Whole New World" for the recessional. I felt I could have done better if I had more time to practice and done the same drills as my peers. Entering this project late presented challenges with my time management. I worked to simplify my pieces to make them more approachable and achievable with less practice time. On the day of the final wedding, we were missing a group member, so we worked together to make some executive decisions regarding the "In Ceremony" piece. We decided as a group that a part of my personal solo would be most suitable and accessible as a solution to our issue. One struggle I felt I did not handle as well as I could have was the sudden walk-off of the wedding party following the objections. The suddenness of the event and my lack of preparation (I forgot to set the right pedals) caused me to stumble my way through my recessional piece. Despite these trials and tribulations, I am still proud of my outcome given the circumstances.

Freshman Beginner Showcase

I enjoyed learning and showcasing these pieces thoroughly. My favorite part of playing Halo was the flair I added to the notes in between the choruses. I enjoyed being able to play higher up on the harp during the second repeat of the Staircase piece. I found keeping up with the notes in the chorus of Halo a bit difficult, but overall achievable. With Staircase, my biggest struggle was the hand switch within every two measures of the song, my peers also had some trouble with this as well. I find it interesting that the height of one's chair can affect how the harp sits on someone's shoulder.

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