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We’re happy to introduce you to Leah Harrison, our arts intern as part of the Charlotte Arts Journalism Alliance. She will report about people and events for three months.
Harrison is a musicologist turned journalist. After a youth full of piano lessons, performances, and historical study, Harrison traded her ivory keyboard for a lettered one to expose and explore the ways in which art is meaningful to its consumers.
Harrison has written features, previews, and reviews of performance art and artists for publications including Symphony magazine, SymphonyNOW.org, The Post and Courier, The Chautauquan Daily, The Spartanburg Herald-Journal, The Post-Standard, Cnycafemomus.com, and Newshouse.com. She is currently the program book editor at Spoleto Festival USA and choir director at Gramling United Methodist Church.
Harrison grew up in Campobello, S.C., a quiet town with a population of 502. She attended the S.C. Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities in piano performance, earned a bachelor’s in music history from Converse College, a master’s in musicology from The Florida State University, and a master’s in arts journalism from Syracuse University.
While at FSU, Harrison completed a thesis on how and why Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” has become symbolic of the Christmas season in America, despite having been written for Easter. At Syracuse, she worked for the Carnegie Corporation of New York, assisting Gustav Niebuhr in his research on the Chinese media’s treatment of religious subjects.
Growing up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains fueled Harrison’s affection for southern folk music, contributing to her current indulgence in the shape-note singing tradition. Her interests include dogs, travel and professional cycling (she never liked Lance and is not surprised or phased by his recent confession).
Reach her at
lharrison@charlotteobserver.com.
