Biography

Carolyn’s Harp Performance Background

Carolyn has performed on the harp most of her life. She began performing as a child with the Golden Harp Singer Trio, which included her mother and sister. She was a scholarship student at the Eastman School of Music in New York where she also performed second harp with the Rochester and Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestras. After graduation she played principal chair with the Oklahoma Symphony and after moving to Colorado was the second harpist with the Colorado Symphony and the Colorado Music Festival and principal harpist with the Central City Opera.

Her recordings are with the Colorado Children’s Chorale and the Columbine Chamber Players, Owl Records label.

More recently, Carolyn  enjoys playing at Frasier Meadows Manor in Boulder and for other senior’s residences and assisted living homes. She also plays her lap harp for contra dances with a Celtic band. Carolyn and her husband, George Banks, a cellist in the Colorado Symphony, perform regularly as the Kubanks Duo.

Carolyn’s Teaching Background

For more than 30 years, Carolyn has taught harp. She especially enjoys introducing students to the harp for the first time and training them in solo and ensemble performance skills, improvisation, arranging, and pedagogy techniques.

As a faculty member, she has taught harp at Denver University, the University of Northern Colorado, and the University of Oklahoma.  Currently, Carolyn is a harp and music therapy faculty member of the Colorado Music Festival/ Rocky Mountain Center for Musical Arts.

Locally, her students have won scholarships to nationally known music schools.  They have played in the Denver Young Artists Orchestra, the Boulder Philharmonic, the Timberline Orchestra, and the Littleton and Lakewood Symphonies, among others.

Carolyn’s Music Therapy Background

Carolyn Kuban has a masters degree in music therapy from Colorado State University and is a certified music therapist (MT-BC) and Unkefer Fellow in Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT). Nationally and regionally she has given presentations on autism, movement and music for older adults, arts performance for the disabled, and harp therapy.

Carolyn has worked with individuals with strokes, cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s disease, traumatic brain injury, Down's syndrome, autism, developmental disabilities, physical disabilities, wellness groups, and in hospices. Her internships were at Wassaic Developmental Disability Center, New York, and at the stroke lab at the Center for Biologic Research in Music, Ft. Collins. As a music therapist, she has worked at Weiland School for severe and profound developmental disability, Bear Creek Long Term Care Center, Rocky Mountain Center for Musical Arts, and IMAGINE!, an adult developmental disability service provider.

Her publications are her master’s thesis on music and the healthy elderly (2004) and articles for the Colorado Autism Society and the Colorado Association for Music Therapy. She has been president and board member of the Colorado Association for Music Therapy, a member of the Colorado Coalition of Creatuve Arts Therapies, and an exhibitor for many service provider fairs for the developmentally disabled.