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Called the "Yo-Yo Ma of the harp," by Vogue’s Senior Editor Corey Seymour,
harpist Bridget Kibbey “…makes it seems as though he instrument had been waiting all its life to explode with the energetic figures and gorgeous colors she was getting from it [The New York Times].”
With the harp as her muse, Kibbey is in demand for her virtuosic and soulful performances —excavating centuries of music as a soloist and alongside today’s top performing artists — from the French Belle Époque, to the Baroque, to Persian Modes, to Latin Jazz traditions and beyond.
Kibbey appears as soloist with orchestras across the globe, traverses chamber music series across the United States, and enjoys creating and MC’ing her own projects, illuminating historical narratives from stage.
From the nation’s top concert halls to night clubs, Kibbey is illuminating the powerful expressive range of the harp by placing it center stage.
Kibbey recently made her solo NPR Tiny Desk Debut, is a winner of a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, a Salon de Virtuosi SONY Recording Grant, the only harpist to win a place in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program, Premiere Prix at the Journées de les Harpes Competition in Arles, France, among others. She has toured and recorded with luminaries Placido Domingo, Dawn Upshaw, Kathleen Battle and Gustavo Santaollalo for SONY Records and Deutsche Grammaphon; and, her own debut album, Love is Come Again, was named one of the Top Ten Releases by Time Out New York. Ms. Kibbey's solo performances have been broadcast on NPR's Performance Today, New York's WQXR, WNYC's Soundcheck, WETA’s Front Row Washington, WRTI’s Crossover, and on television in A&E's Breakfast with the Arts. She has been profiled in Vogue, Time Out New York, The Harp Column, and UK’s MUSO Magazine.
This season, Kibbey is the 2022/23 Artist in Focus at the Schubert Club in Minneapolis, Minnesota, bringing three programs of her own creation to the city via performances, engagement and educational activities. She appears as soloist with Artists of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, presents a newly-commissioned concerto by Brazilian composer Joao Luiz Rezende with the Atlantic Classical Orchestra, and presents her own programming at the Phillips Club, Portland Ovations, Chamber Music Columbus, Calgary Pro Musicis, Chattanooga’s String Theory, among others.
She presents duo recitals with violinist Alexi Kenney, in works of Saint-Seans, Bach, Biber, Currier, Messiaen, Clark, Schumann, and Rodrigo. She launches her newest project, Persia to Iberia, alongside Persian singer Mahsa Vahdat and percussionist John Hadfield, traversing the sounds of the Islamic Golden Era, up through the Maghreb to 16th century Spain; and, continues her project, Bach to Brazil, alongside Latin-Grammy winning percussionist/composer Samuel Torres and clarinetist Louis Arques, in works of Jacob de Bandolim, Jose Barros, Paquito d’Rivera, Samuel Torres, and Juan Manuel Plaza. Finally, she presents an all French-masterworks program, in works of Debussy, Ravel, Boulanger, and Caplet, alongside the Calidore Quartet.
Kibbey has toured and recorded with luminaries Placido Domingo, Dawn Upshaw, Kathleen Battle and Gustavo Santaollalo for SONY Records and Deutsche Grammaphon; and, her own debut album, Love is Come Again, was named one of the Top Ten Releases by Time Out New York. Ms. Kibbey's solo performances have been broadcast on NPR's Performance Today, New York's WQXR, WNYC's Soundcheck, WETA’s Front Row Washington, WRTI’s Crossover, and on television in A&E's Breakfast with the Arts. She has been profiled in Vogue, Time Out New York, The Harp Column, and UK’s MUSO Magazine.
She appears frequently as soloist and chamber musician at festivals and series across the globe, including Schloss Elmau, Pelotas Festival, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart, La Jolla Music Society, International Festival d’Avesnois, Aspen, Bravo!Vail, Santa Fe, Spoleto, Big Ears Knoxville, Chamber Music Northwest, Bridgehampton, Savannah Music Festival, and Music@Menlo, among others. Kibbey has appeared as concerto soloist with orchestras in the United States, Europe, South America, and Middle East.
Kibbey made it seem as though her instrument had been waiting all its life to explode with the gorgeous colors and energetic figures she was getting from it.Paul Griffiths The New York Times
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Like a Yo-Yo Ma of the harp…Within a few seconds Kibbey has given the harp an outsized personality and ethereal purity, like a piano set free of its hammers and heavy case.Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The star of this particular evening [Carnegie Hall, Classical Recording Foundation Awards] was harpist Bridget Kibbey. While the classical concert harp probably isn’t the first instrument that you would think of as being badass, Kibbey makes it that way. Praised for her DIY aesthetic, she lends her unorthodox virtuosity and powerful attack to a nonstop series of new commissions…Lucid Culture
Harpist Bridget Kibbey's recital at the Phillips Collection on Sunday went from beauty to rarefied beauty in an eclectic hour-long program. The dazzling runs, complex poly-rhythmic figures and chiming of bell-like harmonics all made their effect, thanks as much to Kibbey's formidable technique as to the canny writing of the composers and arrangers on offer...Joe Banno The Washington Post
Ms. Kibbey, a performer who seems to revel in the sheer physicality required to coax a vast range of exacting expression from her stately instrument, was a delight to watch and to hear...And Ms. Kibbey was a marvel once more, her dramatic sweeps and robust lines repeatedly cause for shivers...Steve Smith The New York Times
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"...the marvelous harpist Bridget Kibbey...
Even after the stranger's arrival -- Kibbey knocked on her harp's wooden frame -- the piece retains its sheer beauty. Sunday, in the final suspense-filled moments, the harpist seemed to be gathering up baskets of opulent sound, bundles of arpeggios, floating them out into the concert hall."Richard Scheinin Mercury News- San Jose, CA
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Even after the stranger's arrival -- Kibbey knocked on her harp's wooden frame -- the piece retains its sheer beauty. Sunday, in the final suspense-filled moments, the harpist seemed to be gathering up baskets of opulent sound, bundles of arpeggios, floating them out into the concert hall."
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Kibbey was an especially dynamic presence, not just in her playing -- she took a virtuoso turn with the quartet in Debussy's "Danses sacrée et profane," a performance marked by crisp phrasing and driving energy -- but also in her remarks to the audience. The format of these concerts involves musicians' comments from the stage in lieu of program notes, and there's generally a certain level of endearing awkwardness involved, but Kibbey took to the microphone like a seasoned pro after Debussy's Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp, briefly explaining with clarity and confidence the significance of the piece (it was the first major work for those forces) and relating the music to Debussy's life (he was dying of cancer when he wrote it, and the first movement hints at the narcotic fog he was experiencing). An Avery Fisher Career Grant winner, she's a student of former CMNW regular Nancy Allen, so her appearance carried a sense of the torch being passed...James McQuillen Oregonian
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Everything about Love Is Come Again, from its unconventionally attractive packaging to Adam Abeshouse's exquisite recording, attests to Kibbey's professionalism and imagination. Perhaps inspiration would be a better term, given this program of underexposed works by innovative composers moved to write for the instrument after encountering a major player. À la Française, the first of André Caplet's Divertissements, offers the frilly ripples one would expect in a solo-harp recital, but Kibbey's range of touch in the second, À l'Espagnole, forecasts subtler pleasures ahead. Performances of Germaine Tailleferre's Sonata, Benjamin Britten's Suite for Harp and Elliott Carter's Bariolage are technically assured and full of character. In Every Lover Is a Warrior, the promising young composer Kati Agócs spins folk materials into a powerful, ruminative suite. Add it all up, and calling this a strong contender for the year's most distinguished debut CD doesn't seem like an overstatement...Steve Smith Time Out NY
Bridget Kibbey brought blazing power and finesse to the intricate part, which swept and lunged through open spaces amid glittering wind and string figures...Steve Smith The New York Times
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Under normal circumstances, a solo harp recital would not have been on my bucket list. Until, that is, TCCA's Third-Sunday breathtaking presentation of the world-leading harpist Bridget Kibbey. I had never been to a harp recital. I could not name a classical work for solo harp. I knew of only two harpists. I could not say how a harp produces the notes of the chromatic scale (seven pedals are the secret,) and I had no idea how the harpist creates such a range of sounds just by plucking a string (it's the physics of vibration.)...Charles Atthill The Union
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"In the Carter, harpist Bridget Kibbey, at once confident and delicate, displayed her instrument’s wide-ranging vocabulary for music, revealing ever-fluctuating tempos, lightning-fast leaps and the chordal richness of the piece."Ceclia Porter Washington Post
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Harpist Kibbey was a beacon of comprehension, her gradations of color and volume steeped in the music's meaning...David Patrick Stearns Philadelphia Inquirer
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Bridget Kibbey, the harpist in Canticle V, caught the various shades of glitter and menace in the music...Alex Ross The New Yorker
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The most familiar piece on the program was the Introduction and Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet and String Quartet. The assembled forces, especially harpist Bridget Kibbey, found all the considerable enchantment in the music...New York Daily News
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That's not to say that the evening was without its rewards. Harpist Bridget Kibbey spearheaded a graceful, dynamic account of Debussy's "Danse sacrée et danse profane," marked by forceful rhythms and a robust tonal presence.Joshua Kosman San Francisco Gate
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...the work brought out the supplest, most affectionate playing the violinist Cho-Liang Lin and the harpist Bridget Kibbey could muster...Steve Smith The New York Times
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As a young girl, Bridget Kibbey heard a harpist in her church and, appropriately enough, had a religious experience. Now the young artist, who has racked up countless awards—including the Avery Fisher Career Grant she used to fund her divine solo CD, Love Is Come Again—has become well known for fostering new works, and for catholic tastes that push her angelic instrument into a wider playing field. We caught up with Kibbey as she made her way home from a gig in New Jersey to discuss her upcoming show at the Stone on Tuesday, May 18. Click past the jump for more on her love of bluegrass, how she hauls a harp around New York and what she thinks classical music could learn from salsa clubs...Olivia Giovetti Time Out NY
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All the works on Thursday’s program were written in the past 10 years, except for “Bariolage,” a six-minute fantasy for solo harp, created in 1992, when Mr. Carter was a spry 83. It was played beautifully here by Bridget Kibbey.Anthony Tommasini The New York Times: Carter's 103rd Birdthay Concert at the 92nd Street Y
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June Han and Bridget Kibbey gave a mesmerizing account, their harps twinkling, rippling and bristling in alternation and in tandem as they cooed, murmured and chanted the text...Steve Smith The New York Times
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"...Kibbey’s bravura and sensitivity, especially in her cadenza, outlined the music’s intriguing mix of timbres, thorny sonorities, wailing glissandos and chirping pizzicatos echoed in the strings. "Ceclia Porter The Washington Post
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Upcoming Performances
Past Performances
projects
Kati Agocs
Northern Lights
IV - Twas' in the Moon of Wintertime
Bridget Kibbey
from The Bridge Project
2014
LISTENOther Audio

Bridget Kibbey Plays Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565 by J.

Harpist Bridget Kibbey Improvises with Persian Singers Mahsa and

Mandolinist Avi Avital & Harpist Bridget Kibbey Re-Imagine Bach

Kibbey's "Bach to Brazil" plays Cumbia: Jose Barros' El Pescado

Benito Meza, Bridget Kibbey, John Hadfield play Currucha, by Jau

Bridget Kibbey and the Sebastians, FULL Harpsichord Concerto in

Announcing Kibbey's newest touring project, Bach to Brazil - You

Exploring the Vivian Fung Harp Concerto, with Bridget Kibbey
The Alabama Symphony
Karlsruhe Badische Symphoniker
Metropolis Ensemble
San José Chamber Orchestra
The Phillips Collection
This video includes live performance highlights from one of the Premiere Performances of the Vivian Fung Harp Concerto with the Metropolis Ensemble.
April, 2014
Le Poisson Rouge, New York City
Bridget Kibbey, Harp
Andrew Cyr, Conductor
The Metropolis Ensemble

Bridget Kibbey and Siwoo Kim play J.S. Bach: BWV 1020 I. Allegro

Camerata Pacifica - Caplet, Conte fantastique
Concerti
Chamber
E-Flat Major BWV 1031
G minor BWV 1020
(trans. Kibbey)
Danses Sacree et Profane (Harp & String Quartet)
(trans. Kibbey)
Sonatine (Arr. Fl/Cello/Hp by Carlos Salzedo)