Bridget Kibbey: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Watch Bridget Kibbey play at the Tiny Desk. More from NPR Music: Tiny Desk Concerts: Twitter: Instagram: Jan. 8, 2019 | Tom Huizenga -- After the ferociously talented harpist Bridget Kibbey unpacked her 47-stringed instrument at our NPR Music offices, she proceeded to crush the stereotype of the genteel harp, plucked by angels. She proved that the instrument can be as tempestuous as a tango, as complex as a Bach fugue and sing as serenely as a church choir. Kibbey is crazy for the harp. She first heard one at a country church amid the Northwest Ohio cornfields where she grew up. Now she’s the go-to harpist for contemporary composers, some of whom who are writing pieces especially for her. For this Tiny Desk set, she deploys her arresting technique to rework music both old and new. Her blistering arrangement of J.S. Bach’s familiar Toccata and Fugue in D minor offers tightly interwoven voices, like gears in a cloc