Hailed as fresh, original, and deeply-felt (Mike Reid, songwriter; co-wrote I Can't Make You Love Me), Natalie Salzman is a classically-trained harpist and singer/songwriter based in Nashville. Drawing influences from artists such as Eva Cassidy, Nina Simone, Bonnie Raitt and Janis Joplin, she fuses Blues, Americana, Country, Jazz, and Pop, creating a new musical style on her instrument. She has been playing the harp for seventeen years and most recently released her debut album 'Ebb & Flow,' which was recorded at the legendary FAME Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The album displays both her virtuosity as a harpist and versatility as a singer/songwriter. Natalie began studying the harp at age seven with Juli Miller and later Franziska Huhn in Boston. During the summers, she attended the Interlochen Arts Center for Music and Dance and Boston University Tanglewood University Institute, where she studied with Ann Hobson-Pilot, former principal harpist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 2008, when her family moved to Israel, she began studying with the late Irena Kaganofsky, former principal harpist of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. In lieu of her senior year at high school, she attended the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. Natalie received her B.M. in Harp Performance at the renowned Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University where she studied with world-famous harpist, Susann McDonald. In her senior year at IU, she won the prestigious harp concerto competition and performed Joaqun Rodrigo's Concierto di Aranjuez with the IU Concert Orchestra. She has participated in numerous music festivals in France, where she studied with Isabelle Moretti, professor of harp at the Paris Conservatory, and Marie-Pierre Langlamet, principal harpist at the Berlin Philharmonic. She also spent two months in France studying with Germaine Lorenzini, honorary harpist of the National Orchestra of Lyon. Her instrumental cover of Adele's 'Rolling in the Deep' in 2011 with cellist, Avi Levi, received over 250,000 views and was featured in the HarpColumn's article on Best Youtube Harp Videos.' In 2012, she teamed up with percussionist, Evan Chapman, to record and film a cover of Gotye's 'Somebody That I Used to Know.' Within 24 hours, the video earned thousands of views and recognition by the artist himself. He tweeted the video and invited the two to see him perform and meet him backstage at his show in Chicago. After graduating from Indiana University, Natalie moved to New York City and began performing and singing her own songs weekly at singer/songwriter spots in the Village. Several months later, she relocated to Nashville and began recording her debut album in Muscle Shoals where she worked with famous session artists Spooner Oldham, David Hood, and Harvey Thompson. Natalie has brought the classical harp into unchartered territories, carving out a unique style. She has pioneered the introduction of the harp into a fusion of Blues, Rock and Country, allowing the inherent richness and complexity of these genres to be expressed in a revolutionary way. The harp, although designed as a classical instrument, has the ability to capture sensitive and detailed intonation, dynamics, and timbre that is not available in the same way to other instruments like the piano or guitar. Translating the rich capabilities of classical harp into a new field, Natalie has taken all of the potential in blues and country music and combined it with an instrument that can richly portray haunting, lyrical sounds.
