Park Stickney

Although he claims that it wasn’t his plan at the age of 10 to become a world-travelling jazz harpist, he did, in fact, embark on that path then by competing in the first International Jazz and Pop Harp Festival. He completed his studies at The Juilliard School in New York and has travelled across Europe, Asia and the USA, as a soloist and teacher, as well as with ensembles whose music ranges from jazz to classical to rock.

Park has toured Hong Kong, India, and Sri Lanka four times with harpist Daphne Hellman (1995–98), taught and performed at the Umbria Jazz Festival in conjunction with the Berklee College of Music (1998), given workshops and concerts in Scotland for the Edinburgh Harp Festival (2006, 2004, 2000, 1991), the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival (1996) and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (1998, 1996). In France, he has taught and given concerts at the Academy of Pierre Jamet in Gargilesse (1999, 1997), the Journées de la Harpe in Arles, and the Festival de Harpe in Avesnois. Stickney was a guest soloist at the Soka Harp Festival in Japan, the first two Caribbean Harp Festivals in Puerto Rico, the Kansas City Festival of the Harp, the Adelaide Harp Festival and the 2002, 1999 and 1996 World Harp Congresses.

He has taught and performed in Germany at the Mosenberg Harfentreffen (1998-2006), and the Süddeutsches Harfentreffen, Violau (2007, 2004, 2002, 1999). In the fall of 1999, he was invited by electro-celtic harpist Rüdiger Oppermann to perform 25 concerts in Germany as part of his International Harp Festival. Stickney returned to Germany the following year, this time for a 10-concert solo tour. As Rüdiger and Park found themselves constantly jamming together at harp festivals, they decided in 2003 to form an official duo, by making the critically acclaimed CD Harp Summit (‘Two players at the top of their game share their complementary skill and empathy with the music’ The Harp Column), touring Germany and Korea, and performing at the Edinburgh Harp Festival. This collaboration continued in Rüdiger’s 2004 Klangwelten tour, which also featured musicians from Gambia, the Cook Islands, India, and Mongolia. In spring 2005 Stickney and Oppermann toured twelve cities in the USA, including New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Boston and Los Angeles.

Park has been a long-term collaborator with the Italian bassist Dino Contenti. In duo, and with other musicians (drummer Manhu Roche, guitarist Moreno D’Onofrio, violinist Rrok Jakaj, saxophonist Claudio Fassoli), they have given numerous performances, primarily in Italy (Asti, Torino, Milano, Bergamo, Palermo, Verona, Bolzano, etc.), as well as in Switzerland, England, Germany, Albania and Spain. This duo in turn led to another group, Sixty-three Strings, a quartet made up of Stickney and Contenti plus the guitar duo Manomanouche, which plays the music of Django Reinhardt.

An active teacher, Park is a Visiting Professor of Jazz Harp at the Royal Academy of Music. He also teaches an ongoing jazz class at the Rotterdam Codarts Hogeschool vor de Kunsten and the Lausanne Conservatoire and has given masterclasses at The Juilliard School, the Berklee College of Music, the University of Minnesota, the Chopin Conservatory in Warsaw, the Hochschule für Musik und Theatre in Munich, the Paris Conservatory, the Barcelona and Zaragosa Conservatories in Spain, the Ecole de Jazz et Musique Actuelle in Lausanne, the Conservatories of Torino, Bolzona, and Pesaro in Italy, and has taught at every International Jazz and Pop Harpfest since 1995. He also teaches privately in Geneva, London, and New York.

Park recorded his first CD, Overdressed Late Guy, in 1995, which was followed by a sequel, Action Harp Play Set, in 1999. In 2005 he released Still, Life with Jazz Harp, a solo CD with guest appearances by Dino Contenti and drummer Peter Gotzmann.

Park holds degrees from The Juilliard School (Professional Studies 1992; Masters of Music, 1991) and the University of Arizona (Bachelor of Music Cum Laude, 1988). His teachers included Nancy Allen and Carrol McLaughlin. He plays the Lyon & Healy electro-acoustic harp.