Cynthia Lynn Douglass started out on the violin and clarinet, with 20 years of classical training. After an accident meant she had to give up the clarinet, she moved to the renaissance recorder. Then she found the Celtic harp.
"That was it," she says. "I quit changing instruments. I had found the one that soothes my soul."
It might be more correct to say the Celtic harp found her, she jokes. It had never occurred to her that she might want to play it until she attended a musical festival in Los Angeles, where she was playing her recorder.
"As I was walking to the stage area, I passed a woman who was tuning up on her Celtic harp," she says. I heard that sound, and my feet stuck to the ground. I heard that little voice in my head that said, 'That will be your life someday.' I knew I had to play that instrument."
It took her two years to save enough money to buy a Celtic harp, but once she picked it up, "I never looked at another instrument." She has kept up with her recorder, but she knew she had found her passion and her joy in the Celtic harp.
That was 22 years ago. Since then Douglass has become nationally known as a performer, composer, arranger, teacher, recording artist and instrument designer — a career path that has continued since moving to Salt Lake City 1 1/2 years ago. (Her husband works with Alzheimer's research at the University of Utah.)
Douglass will share her love of the instrument Monday night when her ensemble, Celtic Harpistry, presents a St. Patrick's Day concert at Westminster College. Joining her on stage will be fiddler David Tomer, cellist and tenor Jaron Xochimitl, and Paul Mitchell on the hammered dulcimer.
Celtic music can be hauntingly beautiful and serene, Douglass says, but it can also be fast and lively. The concert will offer a lot of variety. That variety is just one of many things she loves about the harp.
The Celtic harp is one of the oldest instruments in the world, dating back to at least 500 B.C. "But it is thought that it was brought to the Celtic Islands by Norsemen or Spaniards, and it may go back to the area around Iran and Iraq to as early as 4,000 B.C. But the Celts embraced it, and it became their instrument," she says.
Douglass herself has ties to the Douglass clan in Scotland, but she also has a Middle Eastern connection; she was born in Lebanon and raised in the Middle East, where her father worked as an anti-terrorist specialist for the CIA. "It's OK to say that now, since my father has died. At the time we just knew that he spoke Arabic, and we moved around the region a lot. We were always living in the hot spots. As children, where you are raised is all you know. We thought that was how everyone lived."
Although the family moved a lot, music was one constant in her life. "There was always music everywhere. I come from a long line of musicians." In fact, she credits her maternal grandfather, who was the conductor of the San Antonio Symphony, for teaching her the importance of "playing from the heart."
That is so easy to do with the Celtic harp, she says. "You wrap your soul around the instrument. You wrap your arms around it, and the music is so soulful and beautiful."
The Celtic harp, sometimes called the folk harp or lever harp, is very different from the classic pedal harp, she says. "The pedal harp is more familiar; it's the one you see with symphony orchestras." There's nothing wrong with the pedal harp, she says. "The sound is just different."
With the Celtic harp, she explains, "you play in one key. You use the levers to set the key before you begin; you're not constantly changing back and forth."
That also means you can never play a wrong note, she says. Differences in sound come from differences in size, material, tension of the strings, composition of the strings. "Every harp has a different voice."
Which is why, for someone like Douglass, one harp is never enough. She has several scattered around her living room, including a small electric harp, three or four single-string harps of various sizes, and a couple of cross-string harps, including a 100-year-old harp she has affectionately dubbed "the beast" that is awaiting restoration. "It's very rare," she says. "There's not another one like it on the continent. You'd have to go to Belgium, oddly enough, to find others."
She has had some of the small Celtic harps, the kind you can hold on your lap. But she prefers the larger ones. They have a 5 1/2 octave range, compared to 3 1/2 for the smaller ones, and you can get deeper tones. "I loves those deep notes," she says. The variation in size is "one of the beauties of this world. In the classical world, harps are all the same size."
Celtic harps are also much lighter; her largest one weighs about 35 pounds. "So they are totally portable," she says. The range also provides ample room for creative expression. Although she loves Celtic tunes, she also enjoys Middle Eastern music and has even composed a piece set in the Amazon rain forest. With 10 CDs to her credit, she's recorded everything from lullabies to meditations to wedding music. (For more information on her CDs, visit www.Cynthiadouglass.com.)
Another thing she wants people to know is that it is never too late to learn to play the Celtic harp. Yes, it is easier for children — isn't everything? she jokes. But her oldest student was 83, and she came to lessons with her 77-year-old sister.
But there's something about the music that appeals to all ages and a wide variety of backgrounds, she says.
There was a time when Douglass thought she would follow in her father's peacekeeping footsteps. She received degrees in international economics and Arabic studies at Georgetown University and the American University in Cairo.
But after discovering the Celtic harp, she says, "I know this is what I'm meant to do, to bring peace and joy through music. This is why God put me here, to share this beauty and joy."
She has played in bombed-out churches in Lebanon. She has played for people who were dying. She has been told her music brought solace to people who were grieving and joy to those who were struggling.
"It is music that sinks into your soul," she says. "It changes you, if only for a few minutes. And if you can focus on the beauty of life and the beauty of things, even if it's only for a few minutes, you will be happier."
If you go ...
What: Celtic Harpistry in concert
When: Monday, March 17; 7:30 p.m.
Where: Vieve Gore Concert Hall, Westminster College, 7:30 p.m.
How much: $12
Tickets: Hires Big H Restaurants or at the door
Info: 801-718-3862
E-mail: carma@desnews.com