Department of Music

Daniel Harp is a cello soloist, chamber music performer, orchestral cellist and teacher.

As a soloist, Mr. Harp has performed recitals throughout the U.S., including Cincinnati, Cleveland, Kentucky, New York and New Jersey and throughout New England. He performed a series of solo recitals in RI under the auspices of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts titled "The Art of Cello".  He has performed often at Blithewold Mansion, the Music Mansion, and at many local colleges and universities.  His recital repertoire is extensive, from early pieces for cello and harpsichord to very contemporary works for electronic cello and tape.

In his concerto debut at age nineteen,  Mr. Harp performed "Schelomo" by Ernst Bloch with the Charleston (SC) Symphony Orchestra. and was called a "Master of the Cello" by the Charleston Evening Post.  He has subsequently performed concertos by Saint-Saens, Brahms, Bloch, Vivaldi and Haydn.  

He was recently asked by the Governor of Rhode Island to perform as cello soloist for a September 11 Memorial Ceremony at the Rhode Island State House, where he performed pieces for solo cello by J. S. Bach and his own arrangement of Ravel’sKaddish.  His recent solo performances have included works by Schumann, Bach, Lukas Foss, Messiaen, Chopin, Faure and Bruch.

As founding cellist of the Charleston String Quartet, Mr. Harp performed nationally and internationally at some of chamber music's most prestigious venues. Founded in 1983, the quartet performed hundreds of concerts - performing repertoire from J. S. Bach,  Beethoven and Zemlinsky, to contemporary quartets written for them - throughout New England, the United States and Europe. As a quartet, they trained with some of the great string quartet players of our time including members of the Juilliard String Quartet and the Cleveland Quartet. They have been Quartet-in-Residence with the Charleston Symphony, Brown University, Haverford College and Connecticut College. The CSQ performed on chamber music series at major universities throughout the country including Harvard, Yale, Bryn Mawr, Michigan State University, the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and the University of Arizona, as well as on series in such cities as Chicago, New York, Buffalo, Boston and Atlanta. They also performed in Colorado and Wyoming as part of Aspen Young Artists.  

In Europe, the Charleston Quartet  (violinists Charles Sherba and Lois Finkel, violist, Consuelo Sherba) played concert tours in France , Denmark (where they performed a special concert for international ambassadors at the American Ambassadors Residence in Copenhagen) and many cities in Sweden including Stockholm  (where they performed pieces for broadcast concerts on Swedish National Radio). The Charleston String Quartet has also performed many premiers by American and European composers and has recorded works of Samuel Adler and Amy Beach, among others, for Albany Records and Gasparo Records.  They have performed concertos for string quartet and orchestra with the Brown Symphony Brown Wind Symphony and the RI Chamber Orchestra. They have performed chamber music with members of the Juilliard, Cleveland and Fine Arts Quartets and have collaborated with numerous international concert pianists and wind players. The quartet stopped concertizing as a group in 2001 but they continue to perform and teach together with various organizations in New England.

Mr. Harp recently debuted at the Newport Chamber Music Festival and subsequently performed a four-concert chamber music series in Newport with the Newport Festival Trio.  He has recently performed in a piano trio on chamber music series on Cape Code, chamber music for voice and cello in Providence and in various larger chamber ensembles with the Coast Guard Band Chamber Music Series in New London, CT. He has also performed with the Tidewater String Quartet, the Stewart String Quartet and the Katonah Piano Trio. 

Mr. Harp has been principal cellist of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the Charleston Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Ballet Orchestra, and has performed as cellist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and others.  He was also cellist and co-music director of the Cincinnati Twentieth Century Chamber Players. He currently performs often with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the RI Civic Chorale and Orchestra, the Providence Singers and many others.  He is is often a soloist and orchestral player at Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church with the St. Dunstan Consort and at Central Congregational Church, both in Providence.

He has performed and studied at the Aspen Music Festival, the Grand Teton Music Festival, the Tidewater Music Festival and the Sandpoint Music Festival.  He has written for Chamber Music Magazine (an interview with Kolisch Quartet violist, Eugene Lehner), lectured on classical music and appeared numerous times on radio and television. 

For several years Mr. Harp was active as an opera and orchestral conductor and conducted at Lyric Opera Cleveland, the Dayton Opera, the Providence Sinfonia Camerata Chamber Orchestra, and at the Esterhazy Castle (Haydn's home for thirty years) in Eisenstadt, Austria.  He also conducted orchestral concerts with the Brockton (MA) Symphony, the RI Philharmonic, the Hartford Symphony, the New England Music Festival Orchestra, the Waterford (CT) Music Festival and the Southwest Florida Symphony.  HIs opera repertoire included works by such diverse composers as Mozart, Bernstein, Ravel and Donizetti.  Mr. Harp conducted orchestral repertoire from early Baroque ensembles through mainstream orchestral repertoire, ballet (The Nutcracker ballet with the Sarasota Ballet Company) and choral works.  He first studied conducting in music school, but later studied choral conducting at the Dartmouth Choral Conducting Institute,  orchestral conducting with Gunther Schuller at the Sandpoint Festival and opera and orchestral conducting with Vincent LaSelva of the Juilliard School and the New York Grand Opera. 

While still in high school, Harp was accepted by Indiana University's School of Music to attend  classes given by the eminent concert cellist Janos Starker and members of the Beaux Arts Trio. During this time, he performed with the Indianapolis Philharmonic Orchestra and began playing professionally with other orchestras and at churches. He was later accepted into the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music on a full scholarship, as a cello performance major. to study with concert cellist Lynn Harrell and chamber music with the internationally acclaimed LaSalle String Quartet. While still in college, he performed with the Dayton and Springfield (OH) Symphonies and was principal cellist of the Middletown Symphony.  He has also studied cello with or attended classes with some of the great cellists of the last century including Zara Nelsova, Bernard Greenhouse and Raya Garbousva. He has also performed for the London Chamber Players.

Daniel Harp has taught cello and chamber music in the Brown University Music Department since 1986.  He also teaches cello and chamber music (Summer Chamber Music Camp) at the Rhode Island Philharmonic Music School.  He has previously taught cello and/or chamber music at the University of Charleston (WV), Haverford College (PA), Providence College, Tidewater Summer Music Festival, the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and Connecticut College.

At Brown University, Mr. Harp's students regularly perform solos and chamber music on music department recitals and solo recitals. They have won the orchestra concerto competition many times, playing concertos by Dvorak, Saint-Saens, Shostakovich, Tchaikowsky, and others. Many of his students have gone on to graduate studies in music at major music schools and conservatories.