Harpist Bridget Kibbey brings three performances from classical to world music to the Twin Cities

Bridget Kibbey has the world at her fingertips.

While her training on the concert harp has made her one of her instrument's most renowned classical soloists, the Ohio native also uses it as a vehicle to explore the musical traditions of any culture that's had an ancestor of the modern harp in its history. That's most of them.

This week, you can catch both Kibbey the classical virtuoso and Kibbey the world music purveyor, with a dash of the music educator, too. It's all part of being this season's featured artist for the Schubert Club, the 140-year-old St. Paul-based presenter of recitals, chamber music and adventurous genre-benders.

"Bridget is not only incredibly virtuosic, she's also a great communicator onstage, both through her music and through talking to the audience," said Barry Kempton, the Schubert Club's artistic and executive director. "She's also a clever, creative and thoughtful curator and programmer who has a passion for collaboration with artists from different musical cultures. She's one of the best kind of musicians to see live."

Speaking from her New York City home, the graduate of the city's prestigious Juilliard School said her multicultural curiosity was sparked by salsa dancing.

"I found myself going to a [restaurant] called Gonzalez y Gonzalez, where they had a different salsa band every night," she said. "From Cuba to Colombia to Brazil, it was so fun to feel the variations in the music between these different countries.

"When I started to join management rosters, I was paired with people who sensed this spirit in me. Artists from other countries like Colombia and Brazil. And we would go dancing. We would just hit it off on the dance floor. Then, when we started to play together, they would teach me chorinho or cumbia or Venezuelan joropo."

"I was deep-diving into the story of the Americas," she said. "And, of course, my head's exploding as I realize that you have incredible migration patterns where people are thrown together for the first time in history for reasons good, bad and ugly.

"For example, the baroque courts of Europe, the western African slave population, and Indigenous populations of South America meeting together in South America after Columbus sailed the ocean blue."

While the harpist also will be performing classical repertoire with the Calidore String Quartet — a Sunday Music in the Park Series concert of music by Belle Epoque Frenchmen Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré and André Caplet — her international investigations inspire a Parkway Theater program at which she'll tap into the roots of the harp's family tree.

It's called "Persia to Iberia," but actually goes the other direction, both geographically and chronologically. It starts in circa-1500 Spain, crosses North Africa and lands in what is now Iran with settings of works by Persian poets Rumi and Hafez. Giving voice to those will be Mahsa Vahdat.

"She's a modern emblem of freedom in the Middle East and beyond as a powerful Iranian singer who refuses to not sing alone onstage," Kibbey said.

"The wonderful thing about the harp for kids is that it wraps them in something like a warm hug," she said. "There's nothing between my fingers and the strings, which is something I love about the harp. We can create such varied emotions with our fingertips."

Bridget Kibbey

With the Calidore String Quartet: 4 p.m. Sunday; St. Anthony Park United Church of Christ, 2129 Commonwealth Av., St. Paul; $23-$33.

KidsJam: 10:30 a.m. Tuesday; Courtroom 317, Landmark Center, 75 W. 5th St., St. Paul; free-$5.

"Persia to Iberia": 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; Parkway Theater, 4814 Chicago Av. S., Mpls.; $33.