Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Harpist Releases Christmas Album

The musicians of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) lead professional lives well beyond the stage of Symphony Hall. They teach, compose, mentor, volunteer, perform … and much more. Now, the ASO’s principal harpist, Elisabeth Remy Johnson, has released her latest recording. It’s called “A Christmas Collection” and it’s an album of carols and holiday songs arranged for solo harp.

Many of the arrangements are by Carlos Salzedo, whom Remy Johnson describes as “one of the greatest harpists of the 20th century.” In fact, nearly all of the Salzedo arrangements on the album were composed during the Christmas season of 1954. The ASO harpist closes her Christmas album with an arrangement of her own: Gustav Holst’s haunting “In the Bleak Mid-Winter.”