Harpist since 1988.

Biography.

American harpist Mollie Marcuson Schiffer has enjoyed a varied career as a symphony and chamber musician, freelance harpist, and teacher. Before relocating to Germany in 2012, Mollie performed regularly as harpist with the St. Paul (MN) Chamber Orchestra and was for five seasons the principal harpist of the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra in Houston, Texas. She has also appeared frequently with many other major American orchestras, including the Houston, San Antonio, Kansas City and Spokane Symphonies, has played under the baton of such eminent conductors as Hans Graf, Marin Alsop, JoAnn Falletta, Michael Stern, Andreas Delfs, Douglas Boyd, Eckart Preu, Claus Peter Flor and Gunther Schuller, and has shared stages with legends of both classical and pop music, such as Dawn Upshaw, Itzhak Perlman, and Gloria Gaynor.

Mollie is also an enthusiastic advocate for new music, and has shown consistent dedication to performing and promoting it. She served for two seasons as principal harpist at the Cabrillo Festival for Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, CA and performed regularly with Musiqa, a Houston composers' collective. She appears in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s 2007 recording of works by George Tsontakis, and recorded Karim Al-Zand’s Duet for Viola and Harp with violist Ab Sengupta for an album released in early 2009 ("Chamber Music of Karim Al-Zand"). She has premiered countless orchestral and chamber works by the likes of Tsontakis, Al-Zand, Osvaldo Goliov, Carter Pann, and David Heath, and has collaborated with many young composers on solo and chamber pieces for the harp. She regularly joined forces with New York-based jazz-hip-hop-folk trio, The Oracle Hysterical, comprised of composers Elliot Cole, Doug Balliett, and Brad Balliett, and joined them on their 2011 German tour that culminated with the trio’s residency at the Lucerne Festival.

In 2008, Mollie joined the Metallica tribute harp duo Harptallica, a venture which took her all over the United States and Europe. Harptallica has appeared on numerous radio and television stations in the US, participated in festivals such as the Lunatic Luau in Virginia Beach and the MetalliBash on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, and opened for REO Speedwagon and Styx. Harptallica was committed to bringing the harp to the attention of new audiences, which is important to Mollie in her solo career as well. She has performed numerous concerts in community centers, hospitals, schools, retirement and nursing homes, and participated in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra's CONNECT program, for which she gave lectures and demonstrations at schools around the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

Mollie has been teaching harp since 2000, and has held faculty positions at Stephen F. Austin State University, Sam Houston State University, and the American Festival for the Arts Summer Music Conservatory in Houston. Her students have gone on to win prizes at regional and state-wide competitions and to complete degrees in harp performance. Mollie began playing the harp at age seven in her home town of Kansas City. She received her bachelor’s degree in harp performance from the University of Minnesota in 2003, and her master’s degree in harp performance in 2006 from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. Her main teachers were Paula Page, Alice Chalifoux, Deborah Wells-Clark, Kathy Kienzle, and Francis Miller.

Since 2012, Mollie has been living and playing in Germany. She can often be seen playing with the Klassische Philharmonie Bonn, the Junge Orchester NRW, as well as with the Düsseldorf Lyric Opera and the chamber collective VivazzA.