Kirsten Agresta-Copely: Aquamarine
Valcope Recording Company
Kirsten Agresta-Copely's 2020 album Around The Sun brought the harpist a slew of awards, among them a Silver Medal in the Global Music Awards, and its follow-up, the recently released Aquamarine (2023), will likely do much the same (in fact, it recently garnered her another Silver Medal from the same organization). She's typically called a New Age artist, but doing so risks underappreciating the breadth of her accomplishments. The classically trained harpist has taught at Vanderbilt University, performed before the Obamas at the White House and elsewhere with Tony Bennett, Stevie Wonder, Andrea Bocelli, Lady Gaga, John Legend, and others. She has appeared on film soundtracks and on some of the world's most renowned stages; testifying to her versatility, she delivered the world premiere performance of Dinos Constantinides' Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra at Lincoln Center in 2019.
Aquamarine is grounded in two things in particular, nature and Agresta-Copely's mother. As its title intimates, the ocean was a key inspiration for the project, which finds the harpist meditating musically on its vastness and enigmatic quality and by extension to our fundamental connection to it and water in general. On this album, the ocean isn't seen as a danger or threat but rather as a site of peace and tranquility from which to draw spiritually. The album also pays heartfelt tribute to her recently deceased mother, a pianist and former Miss Michigan who was not only a lifelong source of support for her daughter but who also fostered her appreciation for nature. In keeping with the intensely personal character of the release, all but two of the nine pieces feature Agresta-Copely alone, the exceptions “Surfacing,” which includes cellist Tess Remy-Schumacher, and “Into the Mist," on which she's joined by cellist Dave Eggar and violinist Maggie Gould Wilson.
Her bright, radiant harp lends the evocative title track immediate impact. Graceful strums and plucked melodies intermingle, with pregnant pauses allowing the music ample space to reverberate and work its hypnotic magic. The music is quietly majestic, but melancholy emerges too in the subtle ache of the expressions—both thematic dimensions of the album accounted for in the piece. Rather more peaceful are “Sea Idyll,” “Naiads,” and “I Am Water,” which exude wonder and serenity in equal measure; referencing the ocean theme directly, “Deep Blue World” punctuates low-pitched notes with glissandi-like accents, Agresta-Copely perhaps intending to suggest the movements of tiny sea creatures and the dark depths below. Whereas a gentle folk character infuses the regal “Coralline,” “Glass Octopus” conjures the image of a fairy-tale-like mollusc, the harp's lustrous patterns in some unusual way alluding to the creature's translucency.
Without question, the inclusion of Remy-Schumacher's emotive cello playing on “Surfacing” does much to elevate the piece, as do the contributions of Eggar and Gould Wilson to the haunting “Into the Mist.” The noun invites two readings, the idea on the one hand of a water-associated phenomenon and on the other a soul leaving the body and dispersing itself into the air. Not surprisingly, the closer is solemn in tone, but gratitude, acceptance, and appreciation also arise. That the performances exude such relaxed confidence and authority might be attributed, in part, to the fact that it was laid down at the professional recording studio Agresta-Copely and her husband, musician Marc Copely, have created within their Brooklyn home. It's ultimately the artistry she demonstrates as a musician and composer that most distinguishes the release, however.October 2023