SWINGING JAZZ HARP IS A LIFETIME PASSION FOR CHRISTINE VIVONA

When she was almost a teen, Christine Vivona had this vision that she would marry a jazz pianist one day. Then there would be someone to teach her jazz harp.

“Back then I was always the little girl who played the harp, but I couldn’t play any music people knew,” Vivona remembered. “All the music I played was classical music.”

While she loved that music, she also wanted to be a part of the popular scene. That’s when it happened.

“My family lived in New York then, on the upper east side, and at a master class I saw Corky Hale play ‘Night and Day’ on harp, she was in her 30s and the total antithesis of a harpist,” Vivona said with a big smile. “Immediately I knew that was it for me.”

Years later she did marry a jazz pianist, who also played trombone. That would be Rob Boone, whose resume includes the Tucson Symphony Orchestra as well as the Tucson Jazz Orchestra, Tucson Pops Orchestra and any number of national touring shows playing the Old Pueblo.

In between studying all that classical music and meeting the jazz man of her dreams, Vivona became one of the first two harp students at the University of Arizona, studying with Carol McLaughlin from 1980-1984. Then it was off to the Juilliard School for her Master of Music degree, then back to McLaughlin and the UA for a doctorate in harp performance.

She has been playing in the TSO since 1986, performing with symphonies through the southwest and playing in smaller ensembles for special events. She was a major prize winner at the Lyon & Healy International Pop and Jazz harp fest in 1991 and received an artist showcase in the June 1997 Jazzfest in Monterey, California.

“Rob and I met when we were both teaching assistants in grad school,” said Vivona. “It was 1986.

“Before I met Rob, I was playing jazz but it was very generic.”

When asked about the depth of her jazz chops back then, Boone answered tactfully “I could hear the possibilities.”

“The challenge in playing jazz on a harp is the pedals. You can’t just take it down a half-step,” he added. “So I would have her try different jazz voicings. I was just tweaking, really.”

Without getting too technical, at the foot of every concert harp are seven little pedals, used to put different pressures on the strings to change the notes – much the same way fingers on a guitar fret board change the notes. To play jazz harp with its love for chromatic scales takes a lot of fancy footwork, as well as fast fingers.

“My improv training is always with Rob,” said Vivona. “A lot of the practice involves playing different chord progressions.

“Because there are no outstanding players, no role models, in jazz harp it is hard not to have people kind of smirk when they hear I play jazz harp. They don’t expect me to take it seriously,” said Vivona very seriously.

Wanting to give back as much as she has learned, Vivona holds a week-long Harp Camp every summer in June. All the studies are jazz related, so all the students work on their skills at improvising. Coming up Oct. 11, Vivona and Boone will appear in a Tucson Jazz Society concert at St. Philip’s Plaza. For more info on this musically versatile couple, check out these websites: www.christinevivona.com and www.robboonemusic.com

Christine Vivona is out to prove that playing harp isn’t just for angels anymore. Working with her husband, they frequently add players on bass and drums to book gigs in local nightclubs, developing a sound that is sassy as well as classy.

Becoming a red hot jazz goddess with the jazz man of her dreams can be hard work, but to hear these two in an intimate stage setting is to feel swept up, floating on cloud nine, surrounded by heavenly jazz.