Mary Jane Ballou
The “Short Form”:
Mary Jane Ballou performs professionally on the Celtic harp and wire-strung salterio. Built by the Benedictine monks of the Abbaye of En Calcat in France, Mary Jane's wire-strung salterio has a course of 34 chromatic strings and 7-string courses of arpeggios for 12 different keys. (Yes, that’s 118 strings to tune.) Tiny knobs allow the certain strings in the chords to be altered for major/minor keys. But it’s not about how many strings; it’s the drop-dead beautiful sound of the instrument, which sounds like nothing else. Mary Jane plays a repertoire ranging from sacred chant melodies to a synthesis of Irish, classical and New Age that is all her own. Currently based on St. Augustine, Florida, Mary Jane is available for performances throughout the Southeast U.S.A. Her recordings are available online at CD Baby.
Mary Jane also produces and hosts the Classical Fan Club, a weekly radio show featuring music "off the beaten track" on Flagler College Radio, WFCF St. Augustine 88.5 - Radio with a Reason! If that isn't enough, she is the founder and director of the new St. Augustine Schola Cantorae, a women's ensemble dedicated to Gregorian chant and polyphony. So there was a reason she joined that first choir when she was three!
The “Long Form”:
Mary Jane Ballou performs professionally on the Celtic harp and salterio with a repertoire ranging from sacred chant melodies to a synthesis of Irish, classical and New Age that is all her own. Currently based on St. Augustine, Florida, Mary Jane is available for performances throughout the Southeast U.S.A. Her current and upcoming recordings are available online at CD Baby.
Mary Jane Ballou has always been surrounded by music, joining her first choir at the age of three. (Well, her mother signed her up.) Then it was piano lessons, recorder lessons, flute lessons, guitar lessons, more piano lessons, more choirs. Finally, it was the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a major in piano and a minor in organ. On the geographical front, Mary Jane has been at home in Bronxville, New York, San Francisco and Santa Rosa, California, New York City (Upper West Side), Gainesville and St. Augustine, Florida.
There have been choirs and small vocal ensembles, with venues ranging from Pacific Heights mansions to a 4-H barbeque. Background gigs and performances. Time served in community theatre, where Mary Jane worked with a dedicated choreographer who could teach anyone to dance. And Mary Jane learned that she could teach just about anyone to sing.
The Celtic harp arrived in Mary Jane’s life with the new millennium. And everything changed – a whole new musical universe opened up. For two years, she did nothing but study and practice, going from Celtic to sacred to pop to jazz and back again. All those years of musical training finally found their true home.
With toughened fingers, Mary Jane started a new chapter in her musical career with weddings, special events, and liturgical harp in an ever-expanding range of styles and venues. On the recording front, St. Augustine: A Musical Journey leads the listener through 450 years of history with selections on the harp. Starting with chant from the missions to the annual Christmas festivities of this historic coastal town in Florida, this CD is an audio scrapbook. With a growing reputation and good bookings as a harpist, could Mary Jane want more?
Then came the salterio – a story about a search revealed and a quest achieved.
It’s about looking for a sound, the perfect sound she imagined, a voice unlike any other. In 2002, a chance encounter with a tape recording from a monastery in Tuscany revealed that voice. The salterio.
When Mary Jane heard the salterio for the first time, she couldn’t identify the sound, but she knew she had to find this instrument – whatever it was. And it wasn’t easy. What followed was correspondence with cloistered nuns who spoke little English, Internet searches in every language she could decipher, and the refusal to stop looking. And persistence was rewarded. Mary Jane found the “cithare,” as it is called in France [cetra in Italy, salterio in Spain and Italy].
Having found it, she had to have one – more Internet searches and correspondence in a combination of fractured French and broken English followed. Several months later, this elusive instrument arrived in a large cardboard box, with a zither wrench and a cheerful insert encouraging the new owner not to be daunted by the tuning process or discomfort to the fingers.
Built by the Benedictine monks of the Abbaye of En Calcat in France, this wire-strung salterio has a course of 34 chromatic strings and 7-string courses of arpeggios for 12 different keys. (Yes, that’s 118 strings to tune.) Tiny knobs allow the certain strings in the chords to be altered for major/minor keys. But it’s not about how many strings; it’s the drop-dead beautiful sound of the instrument, which sounds like nothing else. (Well, maybe a cross between a hammered dulcimer and an autoharp if the two of them met on some celestial plane.)
“At Midnight, In Bethlehem” released at the beginning of December and brings the salterio’s magical voice to new audiences. Mary Jane selected Christmas music from five centuries and three continents for an album about the Christmas Eve. Future plans include CDs for meditation and musing, as well as collaborations with other artists. So stay tuned …. There will be more.
Mary Jane also produces and hosts the Classical Fan Club, a weekly radio show featuring music "off the beaten track" on Flagler College Radio, WFCF St. Augustine 88.5 - Radio with a Reason! If that isn't enough, she is the founder and director of the new St. Augustine Schola Cantorae, a women's ensemble dedicated to Gregorian chant and polyphony. So there was a reason she joined that first choir when she was three!