For the past 3 years, I have volunteered as a teacher's assistant every Wednesday and/or Thursday for the Urban Youth Harp Ensemble's Afterschool Harp Program, which has a Beginner Class as well as an Advanced Class.

In this program, especially in the Beginner Class, I mainly work as a mentor to the harp students, building up their skills in harp, music theory, and ensemble playing. This work allows me to improve my interpersonal skills by interacting with my teachers, fellow teachers' assistants, and most prevalently the students, of whom the majority are in elementary school. Additionally, it helps me to better connect with the East Lake community, which I've been a part of since I was 2 years old.

In the summer of 2024, I attended a fine arts and music summer camp in Michigan called Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, recommended to me by my harp teacher. For 12 days, we dedicated about 4-5 hours per day to studying the harp with harpist Michael Maganuco, the other hours of the day spent enriching ourselves with music and art outdoors and around camp. At the end of the 12 days, we performed a concert of the many pieces we worked on as a harp ensemble and soloists.

I made many incredibly talented and kind friends at Camp Blue Lake among the student harpists (pictured above) and my cabin mates. I progressed greatly in my studies of the harp at Camp Blue Lake. I also became far more outgoing, reaching out to others, making new friends with both peers and teachers, and even auditioning for and getting into the camp-wide talent show, where I sang and played my arrangement of Flowers from Hadestown by Anaïs Mitchell in front of hundreds of students and counselors, which I never thought I would be brave enough to do.

Organized by Madison Ford, "Colorful Creations of B.I.P.O.C Artists" is meant to highlight the work of BIPOC musicians to the community in a free, open to the public concert. In this concert, I performed a duet with fellow harpist Alia Hampton, and connected with many BIPOC student musicians from a variety of schools. The concert also included interviews with professional BIPOC musicians on their careers, processes, and experiences.

Written by Rebecca Sugar, an American animator, screenwriter, producer, director, and musician known for her work on Steven Universe, Everything Stays is a song written for and featured in the episodes "Everything Stays" and "The Dark Cloud" in the animated television show Adventure Time on Cartoon Network. The song is sung as a lullaby by the mother (Rebecca Sugar) of the character Marceline, and later sung by Marceline (Olivia Olson) herself. An extended version of the song, which I perform in the video, was premiered in 2018. Reportedly, the song was inspired by a stuffed rabbit Sugar lost in her garden as a child. When Sugar found the toy six months later, the belly of the rabbit had faded to white.

For this performance, I adapted an arrangement of Everything Stays arranged by A. Demkov on MuseScore, taking away the melody so I could instead sing the vocals while playing, and adding harmonics in addition to the various rolled chords and arpeggios of the song. In the future, I want to get more comfortable with adding more complex variations and patterns to the accompaniment, as well as still paying attention to the quality of my voice while I'm playing, which can be tricky to maintain simultaneously as complexity increases. Overall, however, I am extremely pleased how the final video turned out, despite minor mistakes in both harp and voice.

Written by David Arnold, a multi award-winning English film composer known for his work in the James Bond films, Godzilla, and Sherlock, this song is the main theme for fantasy comedy television series Good Omens. Based on the book of the same name written by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens follows the angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and the demon Crowley (David Tennant) coming together to try to avert Armageddon, which threatens to end the peaceful existence they’ve built on Earth after 6,000 years. I chose this piece because of my affection for the Good Omens book and television series, which I find interesting for their clever Christian themes, fantastical and absurd comedy, and satirical commentary on the nature of good vs. evil, free will, love, and humanism. In this song, David Arnold plays with the sounds of good and evil, with sections featuring harps and choirs versus fiercely chromatic and minor strings. He also embodies many of the themes of Good Omens by making the main theme a playfully hypnotic waltz, which plays on the story about love in all its forms and what he feels sounds like a carnival; an echoing melody that sounds a little bit scary and a little bit fun at the same time.

For my final project this year, I arranged and performed a song of my choice. The song I chose is the opening theme from the TV show Good Omens, originally composed by David Arnold. This year, I decided to try something new and not only create a brand new arrangement by combining two other arrangements I found but also arrange this song for two harps instead of one. This arrangement was a combination of two different arrangements of the Good Omens Theme found on MuseScore and an arrangement originally created by Madison Taylor, a fellow harp student. My arrangement can be found here on Noteflight, although I did not follow it perfectly in the video performance.

For our final project in freshman year, we were taught how to arrange a song of our choice specifically to be played on the harp. This song is called Flowers from Hadestown the Musical, originally composed by Anaïs Mitchell and arranged by me, Annabelle An.

I also chose to sing the vocals for this song and only play the instrumental, instead of trying to play both at the same time. I first started out by printing out sheet music for Flowers available online for the piano. Then, I edited the sheet music to fit the harp. I would take out and add certain notes, mark any pedal changes, and highlight any patterns to help while playing. Finally, I recorded myself playing and singing the piece to showcase what I have learned about arranging my own music.

As a part of our final project in sophomore year, this is an arrangement of the song Home by Cavetown, in which I sing the vocals and play the instrumental on the harp simultaneously.

The Minstrel's Adieu

John Thomas

Le Bon Petit Roi d'Yvetôt

Marcel Grandjany

Chanson dans la nuit

Carlos Salzedo

Sonata in C minor II. Andantino

Sophia Dussek

King Arthur Suite

Stephanie Curcio

This piece is called Fiesta by composer Gail Barber and was performed by the Urban Youth Harp Ensemble 1B class in the fall of 2021. This piece has a very quick and jumpy rhythm, and even repeatedly switches between two separate time signatures throughout the song. However, that isn't the only repeated element of this song.

 The second half of the song is simply a slightly different version of the first half, whether it be by playing the melody an octave higher or by playing closer to the soundboard, making the notes sound more nasally and guitar like.

The traditional embroidered dresses often seen in Mexican dance, called Huipils, are actually the most commonly worn female indigenous garment. Whether to wear these garments casually or to ceremonial events depends on the intricacy of the embroidered patterns. Though, admittedly, the style and decorative nature of the huipil hugely varies between indigenous groups.

This piece is called When it Rains, it Pours by composer Bonnie Goodrich, and was performed by the Urban Youth Harp Ensemble 1B class in the fall of 2021. This piece can be found in Bonnie Goodrich's book of songs, Small Tunes For Young Harpists, a book containing pieces for beginners of the harp.

During the beginning and ending segments of the song, a special technique called "Tuning Key Sliding" is used to create the unique sliding noise. This technique involves taking the metal end of a tuning key used to tune the harp, and sliding it along the string after plucking it. This makes the string longer and shorter depending on whether you slide the key up or down the string. Because the length of a string determines how high or low the pitch is, changing the length of the string in a single pluck creates the strange sound you hear in the video.

The sparrows

Are playing hide and seek

Among the tea flowers

Even among insects

in this world

some are good at singing

some bad

In class, we learned two different pieces based off of haikus, one being "The Sparrows" and the other being "Even Among Insects." At first, I was slightly confused by “The Sparrows,” and admittedly the randomness of the piece never really grew on me. However, played in an ensemble, it is a very enchanting piece. Some highlights of this piece were playing some interesting techniques I don’t usually get to play. However, some challenges of this piece were syncing with my classmates, as the sheet music has very little rhythm. And in the end, I think my class’s final performance was somehow both sporadic and calming.

"Even Among Insects" was longer and had a more strict track than "The Sparrows," however I actually preferred this. This piece has several interesting extended techniques, many I had never heard of before, designed to sound like various insects calling out. My absolute favorite extended technique used was the thunder glissando, in which you strum the lowest strings so harshly, the strings clash against each other, creating a harsh thunderous sound. I think our final performance reflected the haiku very well because it sounded like the wild natural tranquility of insects randomly chirping in the night.

In 2025, the Urban Youth Harp Ensemble had the honor of performing at the Georgia Music Educators Association (GMEA) Conference. At this concert, my class performed Sonata in Re by Mateo Albéniz, Wade in the Water arranged by Cindy Horstman, and Spanish Dance No. 1, by Manuel de Falla and arranged by Marcel Grandjany.

UYHE Winter 2021 Concert

UYHE Spring 2022 Concert

UYHE Winter 2022 Concert

UYHE Spring 2023 Concert

UYHE Winter 2023 Concert

UYHE Spring 2024 Concert

UYHE Winter 2024 Concert