Urban Youth Harp Ensemble

Samaya King Biogarphy

Samaya King is a 12th grader at Drew Charter School. She is a member of the Urban Youth Ensemble and has been playing the harp for a year and a half. Samaya enjoys playing the harp because of the simple to complex sound it creates. You can play in two different tones at the same time. She likes the different emotions music creates. Outside of harp Samaya enjoys doing hair, painting, and hanging out with friends. She also is a cheerleader and is a part of the Varsity Cheer team at Drew Charter School. One of her greatest achievement is keeping a 4.0 GPA. In the fall, Samaya will study chemistry in hopes of becoming an orthodontist at the illustrious Howard University.

Sophomore Year 21-2022

Exploration by Harriet Adie

This piece is called Exploration, written by Harriet Adie, and performed by Drew Charter 2A Harp Class. In this piece you can hear special effects of knocking on the soundboard, sliding of the finger on the top of the strings, and a gong at the end. I feel the piece has a lot of contrast aa the front row plays the special effects and the back row plays the traditional (part) music. The composer composes alongside her career as a professional harpist, specializing in compositions and arrangements for solo harp and harp chamber music.

Part Of Your World,

by Alan Menken,

arr. by Samaya King

Junior Year 22-2023

Haiku for Harp

The Sparrows Are Playing

Even Among Instects In This World

At first glance, I was surprised and confused to be playing the piece "The Sparrows". I didn't know many of the symbols on the piece and had one day to practice before we performed. Which was pretty challenging. On the flip side, I enjoyed learning how to do different things on the harp other than just playing multiple notes and rhythms.

In the second piece we played, "Even Among Insects In This World", my favorite technique to play was plucking the strings at the top of the harp. I think the final performance did reflect the haiku well because it showed the harp in a different light and since we split into two groups you could get two different feelings. The editing also made the performance look more elevated.

Business Card and Logo

Music Contract

Samaya Artist Background Music Contract

Video

Senior Year 23-2024

Arranging Project

For my Arranging Project, I decided to play Tomorrow from the broadway musical "Annie". The song was first published in 1977. The number was originally written as "Replay" (The Way We Live Now) for the 1970 short film Replay, with both music and lyrics by Strouse. As a child, I enjoyed watching the 2014 Annie film and thought it had a great movie soundtrack. As I'm graduating this year playing this song felt like a full circle moment.

Page updated

Report abuse