Hidden Gems: Meet Belle Coty of Jackson Symphony Orchestra

Today we’d like to introduce you to Belle Coty. Them and their team share their story with us below:

When Belle was in second grade in Grand Rapids, MI, she saw a harp on stage at her sister’s orchestra concert. She was sitting next to her grandma who said, “I’ve always wanted a granddaughter who played the harp.” So for the rest of the concert, she watched the harpist in fascination. For the next four years, Belle told her parents that she wanted to play the harp. It was usually met by a “Uhh… no, you don’t it’s too expensive” or “let’s give her a few years” or after a few years had gone by “where would we even start?”. When Belle was in 5th grade, she came home to find a harp sitting in the living room! Her dad had been helping clean out the music room closets at their church and found a harp that had been donated to the church and forgotten about. Once he asked about it and mentioned his daughter’s interest in the harp, they let him take it home! 

From that moment, it was just a matter of finding a harp teacher that would teach someone without any musical experience. Belle’s mom spent lots of time searching and landed upon the Franciscan Life Process Center with Sister Mary Margaret Delaski to teach her daughter. Belle spent four years learning from Sister Mary Margaret, where she played in harp ensembles, played Celtic harp music, and worked on her own abilities. When it came time to choose an instrument in school, Belle desperately wanted to play the harp. However, the Orchestra Director, not knowing how to teach harp, urged her to choose a string instrument to learn for a few years first while her harp skills improved, so Belle played the double bass for two years. 

Once Belle was in High School, she wanted to join orchestra with harp at a higher level and began searching for a new harp teacher. After a lesson with Beth Colpean, harpist for Grand Rapids Symphony, Belle knew that she could learn so much from this teacher and stayed with her through High School. When it came time to look for a College, Belle felt hesitant to choose a degree in music because of everything that she had heard about not being able to make money in a music career. Choosing to give it a chance, she took auditions at a few colleges and universities, waiting to hear how much she could get in scholarships. The harp professor at Michigan State University, Chen-Yu Huang, ended up calling while Belle was about to accept another college and said, “what would it take for you to come to MSU?”. 

At MSU, Belle went for a degree in harp performance and a minor in entrepreneurship. Once she started this career track, she realized how many career tracks there are in music and decided to keep her options open. She worked for the university as an Event Manager, videographer, freelance musician with Gigline, social media teammate, and harp studio assistant. On the side, she began teaching harp lessons for adult students in the area and creating gig opportunities for special events as well as a consistent opportunity at TOASTE, a restaurant close to campus. Her senior year, she created the Concert Convoy, a bus that would bring senior citizens to an MSU concert for a discounted price. She won the Running Start Competition grant for this project and looked forward to expanding the idea and becoming a non-profit until the pandemic hit. She then continued her schooling and started graduate school at MSU for a master’s in harp performance. It was around this time that Belle reflected on her life and how she had been able to raise money for the purchase of her Lyon & Healy concert grand harp, car, and more. What if she could do the same for other musicians and students? 

Halfway through her graduate degree at MSU, Belle started applying for arts administration positions until she landed a job at Jackson Symphony Orchestra as their Coordinator of Fund and Audience Development. She held this position during her last year of graduate school, and after she graduated, she became the Director and switched to full-time. Belle has been ecstatic working with an orchestra that is addicted to improving its offerings for the community. They have a Community Music School, a Youth Symphony, and many programs and events to reach their community. Belle now lives in Jackson, Michigan with her fiancé in their newly purchased home where she will continue to freelance and teach harp lessons on the side. 

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
For a majority of my life, I have worked hard and felt the reward of my efforts. I am very grateful when I say that I had a wonderful childhood filled with love, family, and friends. However, there were a decent amount of obstacles that made me question the trajectory of my life. 

In my undergrad, I went through a time when one of my friendships with a roommate became a very emotionally unhealthy situation for myself. I had already been tied into a lease and was finding that breaking that lease wasn’t an option and that my hopes for my friend to change weren’t going to become a reality. I eventually decided to move back home with my family in Grand Rapids and commute to school. It was during the winter and a dangerous drive that drove my car into a ditch one day. Luckily, I wasn’t hurt, but I knew that I had to find somewhere else to live near East Lansing, but I was still paying rent on my previous apartment even though I didn’t live there. I stayed with my uncle Josh in town and then a family friend, JoAnn, that also played harp. It was around this time that my grades were suffering more than usual, and I was still living with JoAnn that my grandma passed away from breast cancer. Emotionally, I was in a rough place, and my drive diminished, but with the supportive surrounding I had, I pushed to keep playing my instrument through the tears and use my emotions to propel me forward rather than hold me back. That was my biggest emotional setback, but I had a few physical injuries that have affected my journey as well. 

In my junior year of college, I got a concussion at Halloween. I’d love to say that it was a crazy story- but all I did was hit the back of my head on a table plugging in decorations at my parents’ house! The next day I played in a band concert; two days later I played in a chamber recital, and about a month later, I was still concussed during my junior recital with my roommate and best friend, Ashley. To this day, I am still unable to watch the performance. It was truly terrible and riddled with mistakes so I can only imagine how the other performances went. After I had recovered, my confidence in memorizing music was shaken. To this day, I still find myself being much more confident with music on a stand than without. 

Then, in my first year of graduate school, I broke my big toe on my right foot. Most people would say, “good thing you don’t need your feet to play harp,” but it’s a little-known fact that the harp has pedals that your feet need to work at the same time that your hands are on the strings. All of the music I had been learning I was unable to play for the next two months! As a result, I chose a completely different set of music for my final graduate recital, but it ended up being my favorite and most dynamic performance I had ever done. 

So no, not a smooth road, but I don’t regret any of it because of where it has led me today. 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
The Jackson Symphony Orchestra has always been one of my favorite groups to play with in Michigan. The atmosphere of the community and staff is overwhelmingly supportive, and all of the other arts organizations in the area won’t hesitate to collaborate so that we can give our community the best experiences possible. 

I am most proud of the Jackson Symphony Orchestra for our willingness to try new things and diversify our programming and offerings. In June, we released our first Album as part of our Equal Billing Project. This project aims to support the music of a deceased composer who did not receive “Equal Billing” or proper recognition for their music. Our album, ‘Fernande Decruck: Concertante Works,’ features three concerti. One of them is a harp concerto performed by harpist Chen-Yu Huang, professor at MSU, and my harp teacher. I also had the pleasure of performing on this album for the other two works. I am tremendously proud that our regional orchestra is able to accomplish a project with this important impact and magnitude. With our continued work, we will be able to uncover music from diverse composers that were previously going unseen or unnoticed. 

Our orchestra continues to push for diverse and interactive programming that will engage and educate our community. Not only are we a symphony orchestra, but we are also a Community Music School, Youth Symphony, fundraising Guild, and a venue that features touring musicians from all genres of music. I look forward to seeing all the ways our organization can collaborate, educate, and innovate to enrich the greater Jackson community and beyond. 

Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I like to think that I take calculated risks. As long as the potential for growth outweighs the risk itself, I am all in. I think specifically toward monetary risks and things I have purchased that either empty my bank account or very close to it. All of the purchases have been things that I need to achieve success. My harp, my car, my house, a music festival, these were all tools that I needed to propel myself forward, and I can’t imagine my life without them. 

Pricing:

• 1-hour harp lesson: $50
• Wedding gig or special event: $250+
• JSO student ticket: $5

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.harpistbelle.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harp_belle/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/belle.coty.5/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGMNN6NiDPUrkhVBz–dE4g
• Other: https://www.jacksonsymphony.org

Image Credits
Rosanne Coty
Coley Kennedy
George Benjamin