Do you have a mission? I’m not talking about the mission statement of the school or organization or business you represent. I’m asking if you, as a harpist, have a mission? I don’t have one, and I would guess most harpists don’t. That’s not to say most of us don’t have any direction or purpose in our harp lives, but defining our mission? I have to admit it had never crossed my mind until my conversation with Canadian harpist Valérie Milot for the cover interview in this issue (see Milot on a Mission).

We all have goals…but a mission serves something larger than yourself.

Milot has built a career performing on stages throughout her native Quebec and beyond. She is not just a solo performer, she is a chamber musician and an entrepreneur, creating two companies that produce classical music concerts. Everything Milot does works to serve her mission, which is to make music, specifically classical music, more accessible to all people. That’s where a mission differs from a goal. We all have goals—learn that piece, win that competition, land that plum gig—but a mission serves something larger than yourself. A mission speaks to a purpose or a community or an ideal, requiring you to focus outward rather than inward.

Milot also points out how critical authenticity is for a musician’s mission. “I think that we just have to always be ourselves, and then we will connect with people, because I connect with a lot of artists, and they’re all different,” she says. “They all have something to say. And I always fall in love with artists when I feel they are just truly themselves.”

Who hasn’t been drawn in by a performer sharing their authentic self through their music or art? Authenticity has a magnetic quality that pulls you in. When you find that authentic expression of yourself as a musician, it feels like magic. Just ask Elizabeth Steiner (See Biggie and Bartok). She spent years studying and working as a musician until she finally experienced that magical moment. Hers came on stage, playing a tribute concert to legendary hip-hop rapper, The Notorious B.I.G., at Lincoln Center.

“My lifelong commitment to learning the classical idiom and lifelong love of listening to every other kind of music had finally evolved into my new artistic task at hand,” Steiner writes. She goes on to point out that it’s not just the performers who get to enjoy that musical magic. The audience does as well. “Moments like this create such a satisfying experience for all involved,” she concludes.

Not all musical missions are carried out on a stage. They can happen anywhere—busking on a street corner, teaching in a lesson, or—as Jenny Ogan found—at the bedside of a hospice patient. In our Practice Makes Harpist column, Ogan details what her mission of playing therapeutic music in hospice settings requires of her. “It’s important to watch, stay centered, and adjust for the patient,” she says, noting the music she plays is about the patient’s needs, not her own.

Mission, in an abstract sense, can seem vast, overwhelming, and a little impersonal. But the passion and authenticity the harpists in this issue describe for their work make it clear that a true mission is quite the opposite. As Steiner says, “Honing what you love to do and then sharing it with the world will give back to you in dividends.” •