About the DirectorElżbieta Szmyt is professor of music, chair of the Harp Department, and director of the Harp Ensemble at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. A native of Poland, she has made appearances on Polish radio and television, and performed numerous solo and chamber recitals in Europe, Canada, Japan, and the United States. She has been a featured soloist with the National Philharmonic Orchestra in Warsaw, the Cracow Philharmonic, Czech Radio Orchestra and the Metropolitan Orchestra of St. Louis. She has performed and given lectures for World Harp Congresses in Copenhagen, Prague, and Dublin. Her solo CD, Rhapsody, was released on the DUX label. Szmyt began her musical training at the age of 11 on piano and then began to study harp with Alina Baranowska while attending the J. Elsner School of Music in Warsaw. She continued studying harp at the Frederic Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw. In 1987, she simultaneously earned two masters degrees, one from the Chopin Academy of Music and one in clinical psychology from Warsaw University. She subsequently received a scholarship to study with Susann McDonald, Distinguished Professor of Harp at Indiana University. Upon earning her Artist Diploma in 1991, Szmyt was appointed to the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music. She regularly conducts performing master classes and workshops in Poland and throughout the United States. In 2012, Szmyt founded the Summer Harp Academy—a week-long program designed to develop versatile harpists—in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina.