Linda-Rose Hembreiker

Mesmerized by the harp in Disney’s The Aristocats and Fantasia as a young child, Linda-Rose Hembreiker explores the intersections between music, storytelling, and the natural world. 

Her latest projects include the premiere of Sebastian Chang’s Chang’e for solo harp, which takes the listener in to the complex emotional landscape of a lady exiled to an expansive and exquisite loneliness on the moon, and Steven Mahpar’s Moths for solo harp, a piece that weaves a spiraling tapestry of perpetual motion. This is her second collaboration with Mahpar; she premiered his Upon Looking Up…, a crystalline and evocative piece for soprano and harp based on poetry about space written by Robert Frost, at the 2023 American Harp Society National Summer Institute. 

Currently Linda-Rose is also the harpist for Legends, An Original Musical at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, an ever-expanding stage production directed by Jiangli Yu, with music by Bin He. In Legends, musicians playing both Eastern and Western instruments conjure up the enchanting characters and daring quests of Chinese tales that are then acted out through music, dance, acrobatics, and martial arts. 

She teaches at the Orange County School for the Arts, Irvine Valley College, and Cal State Los Angeles. She was named the ASTA-Greater Los Angeles-Area Section Studio Teacher Of The Year (2024) and serves as an ASTA CAO evaluator at the local and national levels. Her students have won significant regional and international competitions and scholarships, and have played for national masterclasses as well as in recitals at Carnegie Hall. 

Beyond performing and teaching, Linda-Rose’s scholarly interests include harp history and performance practice. She has had articles published in The American Harp Journal on Alexander Technique, the history of the Northern California Harpists Association, and the founding of the American Harp Society. She has also given presentations about various aspects of teaching for the American String Teachers Association National Convention and the American Harp Society National Conferences. She is currently Pacific Regional Director for the American Harp Society. 

Linda-Rose holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Harp Performance and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History and Studio Art from the University of Southern California, and Master’s and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in Harp Performance from the University of North Texas. Her principal teachers include Sylvia Fellows (Celtic harp), Ellie Choate, JoAnn Turovsky, Ellen Ritscher, and Heidi Lehwalder.