Biography
Alison Attar
Harpist Dr. Alison Attar specializes in contemporary and historical music. A champion of new music, Alison performs regularly with numerous new music groups, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW, Chicago Chamber Musicians, Contempo (formerly Contemporary Chamber Players), Pinotage and Milwaukee's Present Music. She has also performed with Fulcrum Point, CUBE, Ensemble NoAmnesia, the Colorado Chamber Players, and Harvard's Group for New Music.
Alison Attar is a founding member of the new music quartet Pinotage. This ground breaking quartet of mezzo-soprano, flute, viola and harp has performed at the Festival of New American Music in California, "Outside the Box" Music Festival in Illinois, and recorded the works of Lawrence Axelrod, Kathleen Ginther, Eric Gross, Arnold Rosner and Elizabeth Start. Alison was also a member of the Marinos Trio, featuring virtuoso mandolinist Dimitris Marinos and guitarist Paul Bowman, with whom she recorded works by Robert Lombardo and the late William Karlins. The trio debuted at Carnegie's Weil Hall in 1994 with a program of contemporary music. Alison enjoys working with living composers, including Pierre Boulez, Henry Brant, George Crumb, Osvaldo Golijov, Bernard Rands, Augusta Reed Thomas and Mark-Anthony Turnage, among others.
Highlights of Alison Attar's pedal-harp career include the 1993-1996 Der Ring des Nibelungen with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Zubin Mehta conducting, as well as the more recent 2005-2006 cycle with Sir Andrew Davis conducting. She has also performed with the Chicago Opera Theater, Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, Green Bay Symphony Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Ballet, Skylight Opera Theatre and the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra (FL). She toured Taiwan with Chicago's Symphonic Pops Orchestra and currently serves as Principal Harpist for Arnold Rosner's Chicagoland Pops Orchestra.
Alison Attar's interest in historical harps has led to performances with Boston Baroque, Boston's Handel & Haydn Society (including a US tour and performances at the 1996 Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, Christopher Hogwood conducting), Chicago Opera Theater, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Aston Magna Music Festival at Bard College and Canada's premiere Baroque orchestra, Tafelmusik. Alison has performed and recorded with San Francisco's Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Opera Lafayette in Washington D.C.
Dr. Alison Attar holds a B.M., M.M., and D.M. in harp performance and a B.A. in Italian culture, all from Northwestern University where she studied with Elizabeth Cifani, Principal Harpist of ChicagoÕs Lyric Opera. Her doctoral dissertation is entitled Baroque Continuo: a practical manual for harpists. She resides near Chicago with her husband and their two children.