Ella Dawn Jenkins (born 1988 or 1989), known professionally as EllaHarp, is an American harpist and singer. She first received attention in the 2010s, as a blogger in the

tiny-house movement The tiny-house movement (also known as the small house movement) is an architectural and social movement promoting the reduction and simplification of living spaces. Tiny homes have been promoted as offering lower-cost and sometimes eco-frien ...

Early life and education

Jenkins grew up in Malibu. At age 16, her family moved to Frazier Park, in

Kern County, California Kern County is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 909,235. Its county seat is Bakersfield, California, Bakersfield. Kern County compris ...

. Her paternal grandfather was arranger and composer Gordon Jenkins. At age 7, Jenkins began taking piano lessons, but she switched to harp at age 8 after discovering her love for the instrument. Jenkins attended the

Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (), formerly the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama () is a conservatoire of dance, drama, music, production, and film in Glasgow, Scotland. It is a member of the Federation of Drama Schools. Founde ...

, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Scottish Music. While attending school, she sometimes busked in Glasgow to supplement her income.

Career

In the early 2010s, one of Jenkin's harps was destroyed when she checked it on a flight. She learned to play the

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and in modern forms is usually made of plastic, where early membranes were made of animal skin. ...

, a more easily transportable instrument, as she was worried about flying with a harp again. In mid-2016, Jenkins decided to design a harp specifically with airplane overhead luggage compartments in mind. Her smaller model has an aluminum frame, which allows strings to have more tension compared to a wooden frame; aluminum is also more durable and less at risk to temperature fluctuations than wood. Her model has only 29 strings, rather than the usual 30; she left out the high A string, as she rarely used it. Jenkins and her then-boyfriend began experimenting with several different models, and by 2022 the pair had made three aluminum harps, two of which Jenkins has flown with successfully. Jenkins has also built a banjo, which fits into a harp case. Jenkins released her debut album, ''Who Asked you Back'', in February 2018. Her goal with the album was to challenge listeners' perceptions of harp music, with some tracks having blues influences. Guitarist Sam Eigen guested on several of the album's tracks. In 2021, Jenkins released her second album, ''Screaming into the Void''. The titular track was released as a single in April 2020, and a music video for the song was released in September 2021. In June 2023, she released her third album, ''Lost in January''.

Tiny-house movement

In the early 2010s, Jenkins was a blogger in the

. She also taught tiny house workshops throughout the United States while working for

Tumbleweed Tiny House Company Tumbleweed Tiny House Company is a company in Sonoma, California, that designs and builds small houses between , Many are timber-framed homes permanently attached to trailers for mobility. The houses on wheels are available to be purchased ready ...

. Jenkins built her tiny home over the course of a year, with her stepfather's help, in the driveway of her parents' house.{{Cite web , last=Burton , first=Lynsi , date=2012-05-10 , title=6 Ideas for Sensible Homes , url=https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/home/2012/05/10/6-ideas-for-sensible-homes , access-date=2023-12-29 , website=YES! Magazine , language=en-US She lived in her tiny house for about five years, at times with her boyfriend and dog. She moved out of her tiny house in 2017, saying her "life goals...outgrew the tiny house".

References

1980s births Living people 21st-century American musicians 21st-century American singer-songwriters 21st-century American women musicians 21st-century American women singers 21st-century American women writers Alumni of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland American banjoists American bloggers American women harpists American women bloggers Musicians from Malibu, California People from Half Moon Bay, California People from Kern County, California American harpists