The Hartt School

I had 3 string musicians perform the music for my wedding ceremony and they were absolutely fantastic. I was also contacted by the lead musician via email to figure out what music I wanted played for each part, and she was very accommodating and also made suggestions as well. They came early to the church in order to play music while my guests arrived. They performed very well throughout the ceremony. The lead musician even came through the receiving line afterwards to congratulate us. Overall very professional and I would highly recommend the Hartt Gigline!

The students we used, which were headed by Emily Gharavi, were pretty good, though I never talked to them, other than by email. They were a little hard to get in touch with during the planning stages, but ended up doing a great job. We were a little nitpicking about our song choices and ended up choosing a processional that was not scored for a string trio, so they offered to arrange themselves for a fee (only $35, so quite worth it). It ended up sounding beautiful, and my mother was very happy that we were able to use her song choice.

extremely easy to work with and sounded absolutely beautiful!

The musicians were very nice, were well-priced, and generally sounded good. I threw some curveballs at them last minute, which I shouldn't have, and they did well with some, and less-well with others. I suggest if you have offbeat ideas you talk to your musicians early on. Two things though: they apparently STOPPED PLAYING when the ceremony started a bit late, instead of reprising an earlier song or bringing enough music, so there was this weird, long silent gap between their initial music and the wedding party's procession. Uncool. Considering the school convinced me to pay for extra time beforehand in case the ceremony ran late. Extra time for them to sit there, I guess. Also, at the end, one of the musicians cornered me for the check - which I'd forgotten to write out and had to do so in front of the wedding party and some guests. The professional thing to do would have been to chill and let me mail it. But, they're students, and not all that expensive... And, each student group sent out on weddings is likely not the same, so other weddings may not have the same issues.