Stella Castellucci is an internationally-known harpist, composer, teacher, lecturer and author, and is a native of Los Angeles, California. Music is a part of her family tradition and heritage. Her father, Louis Castellucci, was member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and a descendant of a family of Italian symphonic bandmasters.
Miss Castellucci's early harp study was taken with Aida Mulieri Dagort, Joseph Quintile and Maryjane Mayhew Barton. Her training with Alfred Kastner was completed with Ann Stockton following Kastner's death.
Miss Castellucci reached the pinnacle of her profession as a jazz harpist and composer through multiple avenues, beginning in radio as a staff musician for American Broacasting Company in Hollywood when she was nineteen. After two years at ABC, Miss Castellucci entered an eight-year association with famed singer Peggy Lee, playing harp in the jazz sextets and quintets that backed Miss Lee on her tours throughout the United States.
Since 1974, Miss Castellucci's deep interest in conducting workshops in jazz harp has added a new dimension to her career. She has appeared as a guest lecturer and recitalist for schools of music at colleges and universities across the country. Among these have been Ohio University at Athens, Montgomery College at Rockville, MD, Mount St. Mary's College at Los Angeles and the University of California at Santa Barbara.
For her arrangements of standard and contemporary songs and ballads, Miss Castellucci has gained the esteem and applause of harpists throughout the music world. She maintains a schedule of teaching, coaching jazz harp, recording and motion picture and television scoring sessions. She was an invited soloist at the World Harp Congress in Vienna, Austria in 1987. She is co-author, with the lat Verlye Mills Brilhart of Rhythm for Harp, and is the author of An Approach to Jazz and Popular Music for Harp. Both of these publications have reached a world-wide audience among harpists -- students and professionals -- as well as among concert artists and orchestral arrangers. She has been a guest artist and instructor at Susan Allen’s Summer Harp Course, Inc., since 2001.