“A new day”, a work where two harps, viola, bass, percussion and voice are mixed together, will be released on the 21st of June. Its author is Tasha Smith Godinez, a harpist whose music transcends boundaries and genres. Her latest album has been inspired by the Celtic harp, nature, family and faith.
Angie Lemon
There are harp players, composers and then there’s trailblazers: musicians whose entire career centres around the instrument they love, taking their work to a whole new level.
Such is the case for San Diego harpist, Tasha, whose life and career centres around the harp. As the director of the San Diego Harp Academy, Tasha teaches and mentors, composes, records and arranges music. “A new day” is a collection of nine original compositions by Tasha Smith Godinez brought to life by two harps, viola, bass, percussion and a dash of vocals. It includes new techniques on both the Celtic and electric harps as she journeys into a jazz-world music fusion.
As Tasha Smith Godinez explains: “The blend of the electric and acoustic harp sounds brings new life to the harp augmenting the instrument’s sonic possibilities and expanding the horizon of harp music.”
Tasha incorporates traditional harp plucking with various other techniques and instruments at the same time. These include: mallets on the stings and soundboard of the electric harp, the use of stomp pedals on both harps for various effects, a variety of cymbals, chimes and percussive cymbals called crotales and using the soundboard as an occasional drum.
She is joined on this work by viola and electric bass player, Domenico Hueso and percussionist, Christopher Garcia, and before going into the studio to start recording, Tasha learnt how to play both the Celtic and electric harps simultaneously which she accomplishes on “The word began his work” and “The least of these”. A “New day” was inspired by Tasha’s love of the Celtic harp, nature, family and faith, all with a wider context of the world as it is unfolding today.
As Tasha explains, the album is “a musical reflection of the world in its current state, my hope for the future and an appreciation for the beauty of creation both in humanity and nature. All the music is inspired by very personal experiences, the people in my life and my faith. When you hear A “New day” from start to finish, you’ll hear jazz, world, a little blues and a touch of the avant- garde.”
This is Tasha’s sixth studio album and was recorded between February and March 2024 at Studio West in San Diego, California. The album is being released through Ennanga Records & Publishing, the vehicle through which she releases original harp compositions for both pedal and lever harps, arrangements by American composers, and recordings of contemporary harp music. It follows on from “Postcards from the soul” (2014), “In the village of hope” (2015), “HarpCHICK” (2020), “Metamorphoses” (2022) and “Out of the desert” (2022).
(Photos: Pixabay)
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