Lavinia Meijer
Biography
A Sony Classical International exclusive artist, harpist Lavinia Meijer performs solo concerts in concert halls around the world, from Carnegie Hall NYC to the Berlin Philharmonie, and is one of the most important, groundbreaking and exciting musicians of our time.
Born in South Korea and adopted at the age of 2, Lavinia Meijer now lives in the Netherlands. She began playing the harp at the age of only 9. She studied at the conservatories of Utrecht (she was accepted there at the age of 11) and Amsterdam, graduating with highest honors. At the age of only 14, Lavinia Meijer was already performing with symphony orchestras. Her passion for expanding the harp's possibilities is remarkable. Ms. Meijer not only seeks out rare classical solo and orchestral repertoire, but is also always on the lookout for contemporary music opportunities, performing with Òlafur Arnalds, among others. She performs pieces by Radiohead in classical concert halls to high acclaim from artists and critics, and has enjoyed great commercial success with her albums. Ms. Meijer tours extensively worldwide in classical and rock halls and outdoor festivals. Ms. Meijer has received numerous awards, including two gold records and a certified platinum record for the album Metamorphosis / The Hours, featuring pieces by acclaimed American composer Philip Glass.
In May 2011, she had the honor of meeting Mr. Glass in person, who granted Ms. Meijer permission to transcribe his five-part Metamorphosis for harp. Since then, she has transcribed several other works by Philip Glass, including Opening Piece, various movements from The Hours, and the main theme from Koyaanisqatsi. In 2014, Lavinia again took the stage with Philip Glass at a sold-out concert in Amsterdam. Recently, she was invited to perform with Mr. Glass at his Days & Nights Festival in Big Sur, USA. Around the world, Lavinia Meijer delights audiences with her intense and groundbreaking interpretations of the Philip Glass repertoire.
In addition to standard classical repertoire for harp, Ms. Meijer experiments with electronic music, theater music, jazz, and avant-rock. Composers such as Ludwig Ellis-Leone, Garrett Byrnes, Paul Patterson, Carlos Michans, Konstantia Gourzi, and JacobTV have all written pieces for Ms. Meijer. JacobTV wrote her the suite Cities, in which he transformed the song of the birds for harp and boombox. This piece about the poorest of New York society consisted of music set to conversational samples of drug-addicted women with criminal records. It immediately caused a scandal (part of the audience walked out during the premiere) and was a sensation among international harp societies, sparking long and heated debates about the artist's right to play "this kind of music" with samples and a boombox on an instrument like the harp, traditionally considered "angelic."
Ms. Meijer has performed on international stages such as Carnegie Hall in New York, the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Paradiso in Amsterdam, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Carré in Amsterdam, the Philharmonie in Berlin, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, the Bronfman Auditorium in Tel Aviv, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and the Seoul Arts Center. As a soloist, she has performed harp concertos with renowned orchestras such as the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, working with leading conductors such as Andrew Grams, Thierry Fischer, Charles Floyd, Frans Brüggen, Hannu Lintu, and Marco Boni. Ms. Meijer performed Bryce Dessner's exciting piece Aheym as a specially selected guest artist of the Kronos Quartet, and Mr. Dessner promised to write her a new composition.
Lavinia Meijer is the only classical artist to reach the top 10 of the Dutch rock album charts with three consecutive albums. In 2015, she starred in a TV commercial for Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum. Her albums Passaggio and Voyage were recorded in Berlin by renowned sound engineer and 15-time Grammy Award winner Andreas Neubronner. She recently released both Voyage, her seventh solo album of music by Debussy, Tiersen, Satie and Ravel, and a live recording with bandoneonist Carel Kraayenhof: In Concert and The Glass Effect to mark the 80th anniversary of Philip Glass' birth in 2017.
Current album
Winter
Artists Lavinia MeijerRelease Date: 02/02/2024
Sony Classical is proud to announce the release of a brand-new album from Lavinia Meijer, a pioneering and exciting musician and composer, and one of the most important harpists of her generation. Winter is the culmination of a year-long project taking inspiration from the changing of the seasons, and the effect climate change is having on them. The album features two new compositions by Meijer alongside interpretations of works by, among others, Max Richter, Philip Glass, and Nils Frahm, and collaborations with violinist Nadia Sirota, the Wishful Singing ensemble, and Alma Quartet.
“Winter for me isn’t just about the cold – it’s also about long stretches of endurance. So the songs I composed for this record have long lines, and go deeper down into this season,” she says. Even with the tone and subject matter of the featured works and compositions – and with the way Meijer wanted to open up “the dark tones of the harp, because without them, you cannot hear the lighter ones as clearly” – Winter is not sad or melancholic. In fact, quite the opposite. “I want the listener to feel alive, and that the music triggers more awareness of everything around them and the beauty that exists in the world,” she says. “I want them to feel inspired.”
