NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — New Orleans’ “Visionary Harpist,” Cassie Watson Francillon, believes we all have the innate power to choose paths of fulfillment. Over the years, Francillon has utilized a freedom to reinvent herself numerous times.
“I was in college for religion and philosophy and my aspiration was to go into law. I had a job as a paralegal investigator. Later on, I was in the field of nonprofit and animal welfare. During college, I picked up the harp as a lifeline. I was going through a mental health episode, and I heard the harp on the radio one day. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was the language I wanted to speak,” explains Francillon.
Francillon didn’t take the traditional route to becoming a professional musician recording artist and she didn’t have the opportunity to take music lessons as a child. She started playing music at the age of 20. Because of its size, cost of transportation and lack of readily available teachers, there are few people in the world who play the harp and even fewer African Americans.
Her music is all her own design, just as her life is. “My music is psychedelic, experimental, avant-garde, some people say jazz, modern terms include Black American music. I’m bringing an old instrument into new fresh settings,” explains Francillon.
There’s a reason, we often picture the harp as the instrument of angels. The resonance of its strings is ethereal and has been around approximately 15,000 years. The harp has roots with both the lyre of ancient Greece and the kora of West Africa. Francillon has extensive music history herself because music in her blood; being related to the musical Coulanges family of Port Au Prince, Haiti.
Francillon’s message is that we all have power, saying, “Even if it’s not gifted to you, gifts are accessible by virtue of yourself. Music is such a healing frequency. It changes you.”
This year, in commemoration of the freedom of Juneteenth, we celebrate freedom through stories of Black music for a special production of Moving New Orleans Forward with hosts LBJ and Christopher Leach. This year, we do so at the historic Dew Drop Inn Hotel & Lounge.
The WGNO Juneteenth special airs on WGNO at 6:30 p.m. and on NOLA38 at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, June 19.
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