There’s a scene in “Fantasia,” the 1940 Disney film, in which several instruments in the orchestra and the sounds they make are briefly highlighted. Andrea Fronk remembers this scene vividly.
“There was spotlight that came down on the harp, and the harp just looked so beautiful,” Fronk said. “And then she played the ‘Waltz of the Flowers’ cadenza by Tchaikovsky. And I just loved it.”
That scene is what inspired Fronk, at 9 years old, to give up piano lessons and concentrate instead on the harp. Now 43, she’s been playing ever since. She had her first paying job when she was about 12, playing at an American Girl tea party at a library. She got paid $50.
She’s been playing gigs ever since. She’s played at Art Center Waco, where artists live-painted her during her performance; at the Austin Avenue Art Fair, a cultural event started by Waco artist Wendy Davis in 2023; and with a variety of bands and symphonies around town, including those at McLennan Community College and Baylor University. She enjoys playing jazzy Christmas tunes, but her favorite genre is “jazzy romantic songs, the old stuff from the 1940s,” she said.
Besides the scene in “Fantasia,” Fronk was inspired by musicians playing during afternoon tea at the Drake Hotel in Chicago.
“They had a huge Christmas tree in the center, and then tea — fancy $100-per-person kind of tea — and then they’d have a harpist there during the tea time,” she said. “I saw her and thought, ‘I want to be that. I want to do that.’”
In the past, Fronk actively pursued gigs wherever she lived. She played at the Grand Galvez Resort in Galveston, where she lived while her husband was in medical school. She played at numerous venues during the time they lived in Austin and Houston. She would often dress up as Elsa or Cinderella while playing in the lobby of Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.
But with four children — the oldest in college — she’s scaled back a bit since moving to the Waco area three years ago. Sometimes, she passes gigs onto Ashira, her oldest child, who also plays the harp.
Fronk is also a novice acrylic painter and a writer of essays and poetry.
“I’m a dreamer and a painter, making art with notes, words and color,” she said. “When I was little, I remember now that my other life goal was to play my harp in the middle of a forested meadow, playing along with the sounds of nature. I’ve enjoyed playing outside or in spaces with a lot of plants many times for different events. It’s beautiful.”
A Generation of Artists
Fronk and Ashira share a harp, which Fronk’s parents bought for her when she was 16. It’s an 85 Concert Grand made by Lyon & Healy, which has been making harps in Chicago since 1889.
Andrea Fronk and her husband Benn, a pain doctor at Pain Specialists of America in Woodway, have lived in Waco for about three years. They have four children: Ashira, 20, a student at McLennan Community College who is a composer, classical singer and harpist who also does drawings on commission; Ethan, 17, a percussionist who plays in bands at Midway High School; Nyx, 13, an artist; and Hannah, 7, who has recently begun taking ballet lessons. Andrea posts about her gigs and musical journey on her Instagram page, HarpAndSing. She counts jazz harpists Alice Coltrane and Harvi Griffin among her musical influences.
