As a child, Terri Langerak dreamed she was a magical fairy with beautiful butterfly wings, singing & playing a harp. Surviving a childhood of strict classical piano training, she took up the harp in college at the age of 19 and built her first harp a year later from a kit! Little did she know that within a few years, she'd be making her living fulfilling her dream.
Terri plays an Electric concert harp! Walking bass lines support intricate playing that resembles guitar here, piano there & something utterly indescribeable elsewhere, while sensuous bluesy vocals weave in, out, around, & through... & she plays leads that could rival any electric guitarist's! Her warm stage presence and sense of humor, coupled with dynamic vocals and amazing plucking and strumming is a fresh and welcome change of pace from the ordinary.
A prolific songwriter, she has 3 recordings of original material: 'Harpin Around', 'Cynical Serenity', & her recently released 'Zen Breakfast'. With influences of jazz, blues, new age, folk, celtic & even rock, her music is best described as 'Eclectic'. From the ethereal to the powerful, watching her play is as gratifying as listening to her lyrics, which focus on the environment, life's pleasures & pains, spirit, & the quest for self. With a following that encompasses all age groups, Terri Langerak is a one of a kind performer, leaving her audiences amazed, amused, & perhaps even a bit enlightened.
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"Zen koans and caffeine--Terri Langerak casts spell at Borders"
Harpist Terri Langerak details the atmosphere with her music. Playing to a roomful of caffeine-consuming listeners and readers Friday night in the café space at Borders, Fairview Heights, she utilized her slightly-amplified instrument's shimmers, glimmers, scintillations and washing waves of sound to subtly suspend moving time.
In doing so she managed to create an authentic air of mystery.
As both of a harpist's hands are about the business of striking
strings--neither one required in service to fingerboards, fretboards or
plectrums--the skilled performer will capitalize upon this manual mobility to embellish the sound with effects. In Langerak's case the embellishments tend to be "sculptural" in nature. As you watch her hands move away from the plucked strings they cup and tilt and turn--reinforced with considerable body-english--deflecting and caressing the sound waves as they undulate out into the room.
There is something ever-so-subtly magical taking place as she does this-an unmistakable transformation in which, as they say, "the singer becomes the song."
Which is a good thing because "magic" has a lot to do with what this woman's music is about: a magic that magnifies moments, and their accompanying sensations, in time.
A case in point Friday night was "Tea Mind," from her most recent album "Zen Breakfast." Against descending scales she spoke a few spare lines of verse that invoked images of a tea kettle, warmed water, and tea leaves. The song conveyed what seems to be a recurrent theme in her verses, the Zen-imperative to immerse oneself in the drama of the unfolding moment. As the piece progressed, Langerak launched into some of the evening's most vivid, jazz-style harp-playing.
Although narrative threads run through her songs, their impact derives from this singer-songwriter's impressive command of powerful, sensorial images: the black feathers and blood of a crow fallen in the snow, a single leaf poised against a rock in the middle of a rushing stream, the sensation of a kiss.
Langerak's songs, while delightfully-melodic, do not run especially-circular courses. Rather, they meander according to the strictures of a musical navigation that is all her own. Although the melodies arrive back home, the courses they run are free ones that serve her verses wonderfully.
Her music, Friday night, demonstrated the power to cut through the
percussion of banging baristas, the giggles of courting adolescents, and the pervading caffeine buzz of Borders, addressing itself to the hearts of Langerak's fascinated listeners.
Paul A. Harris
Prospect News High Yield Reporter
St. Louis, Mo.
(618) 659-3552
paul.harris@prospect-news.com
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