Harpist - Alison Read

Alison Read, harpist, has maintained an active performing and teaching schedule
around her native Dallas for over two decades. Most recently, she was appointed
Lecturer in Harp at both the University of Texas at Arlington (2023) and the University of Texas at Dallas (2022), where she established both new harp programs. Previously,
she founded and directed the harp program at Stephen F. Austin State University
(Nacogdoches, TX) where she taught 1999-2007. She has also led the harp programs
for all of Garland Independent School District (Dallas metro area) since 2008. She has
been an adjudicator and host for the Dallas Chapter of the American Harp Society and a guest clinician for the GreenSpring International Academy of Music.

As an orchestral harpist, Alison is Principal Harpist with both the Abilene Philharmonic
and Abilene Opera. She has performed as a featured soloist with the Abilene
Philharmonic, the Las Colinas, Garland, and Arlington Symphonies, as well as with the
Varna Philharmonic in Varna, Bulgaria. In addition to her orchestral and chamber music performances, Alison regularly performs outreach concerts in schools, hospitals, and retirement communities for Texas Winds Musical Outreach. She has been an Artist-in-Residence for Baylor, Scott, & White Hospitals since 2016. During the summer, she performs as Principal Harpist of the Utah Festival Opera (Logan, UT).

An advocate of new music, she has been one half of several duos that commissioned
new chamber works for harp. In October 2017, she was honored to give world
premieres performances in both Oxford and London of several new works which were
written for her.

Alison received her Bachelor of Music from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (Oberlin, OH), where she studied with renowned harpist, Alice Chalifoux. She completed her Master of Music at Southern Methodist University (Dallas, TX), where she studied with Susan Pejovich.