Rita Costanzi - Harpist, Teacher, Actor and Composer
Solo Concert Harpist
Heralded as an "artist of immense gifts", Harpist Rita Costanzi continues to captivate audiences with the warmth, conviction and exquisite virtuosity of her playing. She maintains an international performing career as a soloist and chamber music recitalist.
Teacher
Rita Costanzi was a gifted and dedicated teacher on faculty at the University of British Columbia and the Comox Valley Youth Music Centre. New York University's Steinhardt School has
invited her to join its distinguished faculty as Adjunct Professor
of Harp, effective September, 2008. She continues her affiliation with the Symphony Orchestra Academy of the Pacific in Powell River, B.C., The Festival Internacional de Inverno de Campos do Jordao and Festival de Musica de Santa Catarina in Brazil, as well as giving Master Classes in conjunction with her solo performances. She inspires students to expand their thinking, realize their undiscovered potential with the instrument and, above all, imbue every note with direction and feeling.
Student Testimonials
Before studying with Mrs. Rita Costanzi I had a difficult time expressing my feelings through the music, but through her supreme artistry I began to make music truly from the heart. She introduced me to the profound depth in music, through the colors of every note, and the subtleties of dynamic inflection. Her teaching is always inspiring, powerful, and complete. Mrs. Costanzi does not only teach her students to be the best harpists, but she teaches us to be great artists in life. While nurtured by her love, one is also never allowed to give anything less than his or her best.
As a performer, Mrs. Costanzi's unique artistry brings a whole new meaning to playing the harp.
I have had the privilege of being Mrs. Costanzi's student for 7 years. During this time I grew immeasurably as person and artist; and without her, I would never be where I am now. A towering figure in all walks of life, Mrs. Costanzi has my utmost respect and love.
Joy Yeh, Masters Student – Yale School of Music
Rita Costanzi focuses on a strong solid technical foundation, but creating music, living the music and communicating the music by giving of oneself, remains the most important goal. Rita brings life and passion to music and consistently challenges the student to strive for more than he/she may think possible. Attention to detail and interpretation is paramount and often imagery is used to bring the music to life. Rita teaches her students to be flexible in their thinking and she stresses the importance of being convincing when approaching music. On of my favourite things about Rita is her undying inspiration. She always has so many ideas and challenges and they are presented to the student in a beautiful and very motivating way. She has the incredible ability to draw out the best in a pupil so that often in lessons one is playing better than he/she ever imagined possible. As a teacher, Rita is very warm and caring. She knows when to push a student, but also when the student has reached his/her full potential and it is time for acknowledgement. The environment created in lessons is always one of encouragement and support. History, art, poetry and relaxation techniques are all incorporated into understanding a piece. There is great awareness given to each student’s uniqueness. Rita nurtures this individuality by letting the artist in each student express him/herself. One always leaves the lesson inspired and enlivened with so many new thoughts about how to approach the music he/she is working on.
Heidi Krutzen
Principal Harp – Vancouver Opera, Krutzen-McGhee Duo
Rita Costanzi believes that a unique and personal potential for excellence exists in every student. From the outset, she instills in her students a solid, consistent technique, focus and discipline in practice, and a commanding presence at the instrument. She teaches students to understand every line, every phrase, invested with meaning as it shapes the artistic whole. Most importantly she inspires passion for music as a vehicle of expression of one’s own heart and soul.
Adelia Harrison
Masters Student – UBC School of Music
I think that Rita Costanzi is a very unique teacher. I appreciate what she has taught because now I see and hear music in a more meaningful way. I am also very thankful about the many things that she taught me about being a performer who is reaching out to people. Ever since I heard her recital at the Vancouver Academy of Music, I have understood and valued the difference in her teaching and am very grateful.
Albertina Chan
Rita Costanzi is a fabulous harp teacher. Having now completed four years of study with her here at UBC, I can see/hear an enormous improvement in my technique and musical ability as a harpist. She encouraged my independence as a musician strongly this year and because of her help I feel confident and ready to enter the life of a professional musician. It is a testament to Mrs. Costanzi’s teaching and personality that I shall miss her greatly.
Melanie Beale
BA Music – UBC School of Music
Performance Major - Harp
Rita Costanzi is by far one of the best teachers I have ever had. She gives so much of herself in lessons and coachings and is immensely inspiring. I feel extremely fortunate to have had the chance to work with her.
Ellen Heinicke
MA Music – UBC School of Music
Performance Major – Harp
Actor
Harp & Solo, a monologue for a harpist
by Kico Gonzalez-Risso, 1996
In 1996, when writer/director Kico Gonzalez-Risso wrote "Harp & Solo, a monologue for a harpist" for Rita Costanzi, she entered a new art form - acting. This twenty-minute theatre piece, presented in the film noir tradition, synthesizes aspects of harp history with the trials and tribulations of performance, and explores the relationship between the Artist and her instrument. Rita now includes this successful piece in her solo recitals. A woman detective - disguised as a man - is sent to investigate a crime. She finds herself caught in an elaborate trap - a trap that has taken a lifetime to prepare. She is left with one last option for survival, an option that brings her face to face with life and death.
"It's a remarkable study, reminiscent of Yeats' query: 'How can we know the dancer from the dance?' Where does the harp end and Costanzi begin? Lovely."
—Vancouver Courier
The Collected Silences of David's Mother
by Don Mowatt, 2000
With "The Collected Silences of David's Mother" by Don Mowatt, Rita Costanzi reaches another dimension on her path as a performance artist. This play is set in the desert community where the historical King David grew up. It is a story told from the point of view of David's mother, who, the authour imagines, taught David to play the harp and influenced his poetical and spiritual direction. The play is a series of stories and meditations on self-discovery, listening for the voice of God, accepting God's long silences and showing compassion for the troubles of others. It aims to be both an entertainment and a profound reflection on the words of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. This piece combines images, sayings, metaphors and points of reference from all three Abrahamic religions.
Click here to listen to an excerpt from David's Mother (MP3, 1.75 MB)
"When Rita Costanzi first presented The Collected Silences of David's Mother at the Chautauqua Institution in New York, her speech, her silence and the language of her body evoked a sense of awe that was close to worship. It had something also of the strange and terrifying beauty that only great art can achieve."
Ross Mackenzie, Director
Chautauqua Institution
A Score to Settle
A musical monologue for solo harpist, 2007
Written by Kico Gonzalez-Risso with music by Rita Costanzi
True confessions of the woman behind the harp! Secrets never-before revealed! A Festival Vancouver Premiere - August 2007!
From the initial spark of genius - to the grand plan to change the world - to the final reconciliation of art and life, A SCORE TO SETTLE is a musician's comic confrontation with mortality. And, as you listen to the story, a score is being composed before your very ears. A tell-all tale of music, passion and a very large instrument.
"Kico Gonzalez-Rissos’s vehicle for Costanzi is almost indescribably wonderful “Rita Costanzi returned to Vancouver for the first afternoon show, “A Score to Settle: A Musical Monologue for Solo Harpist.” Writer/director Kico Gonzalez-Rissos’s vehicle for Costanzi is almost indescribably wonderful: there has been no better local blending of music and drama since the fabled 1997 Morris Panych /Wendy Gorling production of “The Overcoat.” Most Vancouver music fans know Costanzi as a naturally gifted performer; this remarkable piece reveals her as a polished, energetic comic actress. Costanzi’s own music consisted of little more than a couple of songs and a handful of atmospheric cues, but her contribution was so smoothly integrated that any other music would have been unthinkable."
David Gordon Duke
Vancouver Sun August 13, 2007
I found the excerpts very atmospheric, striking, and powerful. These moments are very impressive. If I may say so, Rita Costanzi has the admirable knack of conveying thought and of filling silences. It’s wonderful, and I suppose quite rare, to have someone play so sensitively and also perform so intelligently, and with such emotional involvement (I very much like the lived in quality of the voice, by the way). This type of thing is a rarity.
John Theocharis
BBC Producer
Those who, like us, have remained struck by the intensity of Rita's interpretation both as an actress and musician are left with the hope of seeing her again in a solo concert for this extraordinary instrument — the harp.
Anna Lucentini
L'ECO D'ITALIA
Although Don Mowatt's 'The Collected Silences of David's Mother' (2000) reclaims the 'feminine principle' as the unacknowledged source of healing within the Judaeo-Christian tradition, this particular piece was not only written for Rita Costanzi, but inspired by the healing quality of her music. Thus the transformed Old Testament story 'The Collected Silences of David's Mother' (2000) is more a living imagination and testimony of the healing capacity of Rita Costanzi. Although a highly esteemed harpist, Rita Costanzi plays the Celtic harp for the terminally ill and dying in hospitals, hospices and private homes.
Elizabeth Carmack
Cambridge Music Conference, 2002
Composer
Rita Costanzi not only regularly commissioned works from Canadian composers during her twenty-eight year residency in Vancouver, but premiered her own composition for solo harp in 1995 entitled: "Know You Like Star and Storm" to enthusiastic acclaim. In addition to composing all the music for her theater pieces, her new work for women's choir, children's choir and narrator "Beneath Her Heart" (2006) will be premiered by The Elektra Women's Choir on April 26, 2008 at the Ryerson United Church, Vancouver.
“Star Harpist Shines in Dramatic, Challenging Constellation”
Costanzi’s own composition Know You Like Star and Storm...caught me completely by surprise
Concluding the first half of the program was Costanzi’s own composition Know You Like Star and Storm, which caught me completely by surprise. As she crouched behind the harp as though it were a mask, the musician recited lines from Rainer-Maria Rilke’s “The Poet Speaks of Praising”; the words contend that the poet’s purpose is simply to praise. A Middle Eastern pulse, oddly suited to the harp, ran through the piece and the harpist’s impassioned strumming caused an atonal clangour that was nonetheless compelling and enchanting, like the sacred banging of a gong in religious rituals. The piece’s intensity roused the sizeable crowd, which brought Costanzi back for several bows with enthusiastic foot-stomping, hooting and pounding applause.
Vesta Giles, Georgia Straight
World Premiere of "Beneath Her Heart" for Women's Choir,
Children's Choir and Narrator
Elektra Women's Choir
April 26, 2008
Ryerson United Church, Vancouver
7:30 p.m.
