About Ms. Sesma…

A versatile performer in the mediums of orchestral and harp chamber music and as a film session musician, Megan Sesma has performed in venues that range from Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow Russia, the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Carnegie Hall and numerous concert halls in South America. Her experience has placed her under the batons of some of music’s greatest luminaries, including conductors ranging from Neeme Jarvi and Yuri Temirkanov to John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith. No less an innovator when it comes to the harp’s expressive and stylistic possibilities, Ms. Sesma has also shared the stage with such legends of contemporary and popular music as Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, Diana Krall and Dianne Reeves.

As of February 2003 the United States Coast Guard Band added a harp position for the first time since its creation in 1925. Ms. Sesma is currently the 1st enlisted principal harpist with the United States Coast Guard Band. In addition to her position as principal harpist with the United States Coast Guard Band she substitutes with the New Haven Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Hartford Symphony, Bridgeport, Manchester, New Britain and Eastern Connecticut Symphonies. She began her piano studies at age five in Iowa and at age ten started her harp studies and accompanied all state choirs on the piano. She spent her formative high school years in Las Vegas performing in casinos and shows and received command performance for strings for the state of Nevada and additionally the Governors Scholar award to the Interlochen Music Camp.

Ms. Sesma holds a bachelors in music from the Eastman School of Music and served there as the harp studio teaching assistant, as well as a bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Rochester. She started her masters’s degree at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California and finished her studies at New York University. Ms. Sesma is adjunct professor of harp at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT and harp instructor at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT and is President emeritus of the Shoreline Chapter of the American Harp Society.

An active proponent of chamber and contemporary music, she has performed with the Connecticut Chamber Players, Coast Guard Band Chamber Recital Series, Las Vegas Music Festival, Henry Mancini Institute Chamber Series, and the American Russian Youth Orchestra Chamber Recitals. Her soprano and harp duo, the Aralia Duo, has performed on numerous chamber recital series nationwide.

Ms. Sesma performed at the World Harp Congress in July 2011 with the Eastman Harp Quartet and toured Taiwan with the Coast Guard Band. December 2010 included the performance of Harp Christmas, a harp concerto with concert band. Other performances include a July 2005 Performance at the World Harp Congress in Dublin, Ireland. March 2006 included the concerto performance of Claude Debussy’s Danse sacrée et danse profane in Merkin Hall in New York City and the world premiere of Hampson Sisler’s new composition for soprano, harp and orchestra, Diurnal Night. In 2004 she was the soloist on the US Coast Guard Band Midwest Summer Tour performing the Ginastera Harp Concerto. Other recent performances include a solo recital in Mexico City, and Antigua Guatemala.

Ms. Sesma has traveled four times to Guatemala supporting the Guatemala Harp Project. Each 10 day trip included donating strings, harps and supplies to the various harp projects and instructing the harp teachers and students throughout the country. This trip also includes performing in concerts and recitals in Guatemala City and Antigua Guatemala.