In the Claggett household, each of the eight children were required to learn an instrument. Some of the older Claggett kids learned guitar, some learned piano. But Olivia Claggett wanted something different. She begged her mom to start her in harp lessons.
She was three.
Claggett had never seen or heard a harp before, but she knew it was the instrument she wanted to learn.
“To my knowledge, nobody in our entire family history played the harp. I always just tell people it was God’s gift to me. God was pushing me and wanting me to take that gift and to use it for other people,” Claggett said.
Claggett’s parents wanted to grant her this wish, but finding a harp teacher in Newark, Ohio,proved to be difficult. Claggett’s parents were encouraged to enroll her in piano lessons first, so she could learn to read music prior to diving into the technicalities of the harp.
Claggett described her piano teacher as patient and kind. The only problem: Claggett hated the piano. It wasn’t the harp.
Claggett was eight years old when she finally got a harp teacher, Candyce Dunham. Dunham, trained in the Suzuki method of teaching, started working with Claggett. From the first lesson, Claggett and her parents knew her interest in the harp would not be simply a phase.
Now at 25 years old, Claggett fills her life with her harp music. She released her first album –the Dawning of the Day — in 2022. And, she is playing a concert at Second Presbyterian Church on Sunday Oct. 13 at 2:00 p.m.
Dunham is still her harp teacher; only, now they meet for their lessons over FaceTime.
Claggett, perched on a wooden stool, tilts the polished harp towards her. Leaning it on her body, she embraces it, wrapping her arms around to reach each cord. Her fingers glide over each string; it looks as if she is barely touching the instrument, but the sound proves otherwise. The quick finger action produces a peaceful rhythm, increasing in volume as the piece progresses.
“You’re with it as one. You’re kind of a piece of it, to be honest,” Claggett said.
According to Claggett, she enjoys showing others all that the harp can do.
“A lot of people kind of tend to put the harp in a corner somewhere in the orchestra, but it’s meant to shine,” Claggett said.
Claggett owns three harps; her younger sister, who followed in her footsteps and took up the harp as well, owns the fourth. Her first harp, a gift her parents had made for her ninth birthday is named Olivia, after herself. Her two larger pedal harps are named Anne, in reference to Anne of Green Gables and Diana, Anne’s best friend in the book.
Claggett describes the harp as the guts of a piano. Although they weigh nearly 90 pounds and can be difficult to move, they are more portable than a piano, allowing Claggett to bring them along with her. She packs up her smaller harp, Olivia, in the trunk of her car to accompany her on trips.
“I have taken it to some weird places on some crazy adventures. This harp has been all over the east coast of the U.S. just traveling everywhere with me,” Claggett said.
Claggett played her first gig, a wedding, when she was 11. Since then, she has played weddings, funerals, tea parties, luncheons, dinner parties and private events of all kinds. Claggett also performs concerts, such as the concert being held on Sunday.
At the concert, Claggett will be joined by special guests: her younger sister Sophia; Rick Black, organist at Second Presbyterian; and Dave Mason. Claggett will be playing everything from traditional celtic songs to classical arrangements.
For all her concerts, Claggett is a storyteller. She wants her pieces to carry the audience from start to finish and leave the listener with something in the end. Her tracklists are not standalone pieces – but instead pieces working together to tell a larger story.
Claggett’s concert this year is a continuation of themes from her last concert in Newark, last October. She describes the concert last year as a first act to the one she is performing on Sunday. She emphasizes, however, that one does not need to have seen act one to understand act two.
“I have this vision, this picture in my mind of somebody who’s in the fetal position curled up in a box, in a cardboard box, and they’re just scared to death to move or to speak or to breathe freely,” Claggett said.
She emphasizes, however, that the box in her vision is not taped shut.
“That flap is ready to be opened whenever you realize. And once that happens, you’re never the same, the sunshine comes pouring in. Whatever that spark is, whatever that thing is that you are meant to do, you cannot be stopped once you realize what that is,” Claggett said.
Claggett hopes that her concert will exist as motivation for people to try something new or revisit old dreams that they tossed aside because of money or fear. She hopes her music inspires people to thrive, to plant their roots solidly in the ground, but also grow and expand out towards the light.
“I love to use music to be able to touch people in a really special way, to encourage them and uplift them to go after whatever that thing is inside that you’re scared of,” Claggett said.
When she’s not playing the harp she is either running her cottage bakery, sourced out of her home, or running the 4-year-old branch of her brother’s pizza place: Pizza Plaza, in Heath, Ohio.
“It’s very fun to connect with people on multiple levels, whether it be at the shop, talking to people over the pizza counter or baking cookies for people’s special events or playing the harp. I have a full life, and I love it,” Claggett said.
There was a time when Claggett was unsure what her future with the harp would look like. In the middle of 2020, Claggett became very sick. It wasn’t COVID-19, but, according to Claggett, it was an attack on every part of her body.
She lost strength in her legs and her arms. Most days she didn’t feel like doing anything. She lost the strength to play the harp.
“When that was taken from me, my life just ended. I just lost my favorite thing. And I didn’t know if I was ever going to be able to play again,” Claggett said.
Claggett didn’t want to let go of the harp. She worked with her teacher, Dunham, who in January of 2021 encouraged her to find something she could do with the harp that didn’t require her to play.
Claggett thought back to when she was in eighth grade. Her sister, Elizabeth Humphrey, told her that she should record a lullaby album one day. In the midst of fighting her sickness, Claggett decided it was time to record her lullaby album.
Just 15 months later, Claggett’s album was complete. Her sister, who had moved to South Carolina, didn’t know about the album yet. Instead of calling her, Claggett wanted to do something more. Claggett and her mom flew down to South Carolina. She didn’t have the album in her possession yet so she overnight shipped it. Claggett was there for four days, and the album arrived on day four.
“That night, I got to sit down and tell my sister every detail about why the CD was for her and why the music was so, so special and what it meant to us not only as sisters, but as a family and to all of us in our particular seasons of life,” Claggett said.
The lullaby album, originally sparked from her sister, evolved into more than just a lullaby album; it became an album of peace and hope.
“The album is called the Dawning of the Day. And that phrase ended up having so much meaning not only to me but to that season to look forward and to see that there truly is light at the end of the tunnel. There really is an end to whatever hard thing you’re going through,” Claggett said.
Claggett feels most at peace when playing the harp. When she plays, she immerses herself in the songs; she feels them through the touch of the strings on her fingers to the weight of the pedal held down by her foot.
“Then there’s other songs that I’ve played for 10, 15 years at this point, and they’re just a part of who I’m at this point. I can think about the way the music feels in the room. I can look out across and see how it’s connecting with other people,” Claggett said.
Three-year-old Claggett knew she wanted to play the harp, and 22 years later, she is fulfilling that young wish. Claggett has found the place where she puts her roots in the ground to grow up and thrive with her harp alongside her.
Ella Diehl writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.