Jennifer Coombe - Harpist

This experienced Berkshire professional harpist plays many different types of music. She studied the harp with Daphne Boden at the Junior Department of the Royal College of Music.

While reading Architecture at Cambridge University she continued her harp studies with Renata Scheffel-Stein. As a student she was an active musician, playing principal harp with CUMS and many other orchestras in Cambridge. Nevertheless she qualified as an architect and practised for a while.

Since 1993, she has turned to the harp full-time and has a busy freelance career, playing all sorts of music both for weddings, dinners and business functions and for the full range of classical concerts. She plays a beautifully inlaid Salvi Arianna harp. She also has a Dodd harp of 1840 and has given programmes of 18th and 19th century music where appropriate.

As a freelance player, she plays for many orchestras in the south of England. She is the regular harpist for Stowe Opera where she played the important harp solo in Lucia di Lammermoor. She has made recordings of music by Paul Carr for Claudio Records and of Francis Grier's new oratorio "Around The Curve of the World" for Somm and of Britten's Ceremony of Carols. She has broadcast for Radio 4 and played for the Royal Shakespeare Company in A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest.

She plays solo, in concertos and a wide variety of chamber music and is a busy and successful teacher, both privately and in schools.

"impeccably prepared and sounding to great advantage in Conway Hall - the choir was supported by accomplished professional harpist. High spots were a rare opportunity to hear Holst's Rig Veda choral hymns, and a splendid mock-tragic Lament for a sparrow by Rawsthorne."

"She not only gave quality support but delivered a riveting solo performance" Britten A Ceremony of Carols

"Close empathy with great care for detail coupled to graceful execution, resulted in an extremely satisfying account." Chamber music for flute, viola and harp

"The achievement of the players and the success of the evening can be judged by the fact that what was perhaps the most familiar piece (La fille aux cheveux de lin) sounded as if it was written precisely for this combination."
Debussy Preludes arranged for flute, viola and harp.

"Vysehrad opened the concert with a luxuriant harp solo, beautifully played" Smetana Vysehrad
Alphonse Hasselmans

• Classical Harpists in Berkshire
• Wedding Harpists in Berkshire