Christina Steffen·VeeRonna Ragone flute & harp duo!

CHRISTINA STEFFEN, flutist, has appeared as a soloist and with many chamber ensembles including concerts at the Phoenix Art Museum, Glendale Library, Tubac Center for the Arts, the Scottsdale Arts Festival, the San Tan Arts Festival , Mesa Community College, Arizona State University, Grand Canyon University, Arts Midwest and a concert series in Los Angeles. She has performed with the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, many free-lance ensembles, and at music festivals in Switzerland and England.

Christina also regularly performs for entertainer acts and National Broadway tours. Memorable highlights include playing for Bernadette Peters, Natalie Cole, Rosemary Clooney, Rita Moreno, the Temptations, Marvin Hamlisch, Michael Feinstein, the Three Irish Tenors and Isola Jones of the Metropolitan Opera, the tours of Wicked, The Producers, Elton John’s Aida, Annie, and Sweet Charity.  She is looking forward to playing for productions of Camelot, The Color Purple and My Fair Lady in 2008.  Recent commercial recordings have been new music for the PBS show, Horizon, an educational video program, a children’s CD of popular classical selections, a commercial for Del Webb and many other CD projects and commercial recordings.

She has been on the Performing Artist's Roster for the Arizona Commission on the Arts, serves on the board of the Arizona Flute Society and has many wonderful flute students at Mesa Community College, Paradise Valley Community College and in her private studio. Ms. Steffen received her Bachelor’s and Master's degrees in flute performance from the University of Arizona School of Music and is currently the artistic director of the Desert Echoes Flute Project, which was recently invited to perform at the National Flute Association’s annual conference.

VEERONNA RAGONE started playing the harp at the age of eight. When her mother and father asked what instrument she would like to play, they were quite surprised when she picked the harp. Nevertheless, they encouraged her development and today are quite proud of her work.

In college and beyond, VeeRonna studied under renowned harpist, Suzanne Balderston. At the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, VeeRonna enthusiastically honed her skills as a concert harpist. She later followed Ms. Balderston to the University of Nevada, Reno and to Arizona, where she currently resides. She has since performed with the Phoenix Symphony and the Mesa Symphony Orchestras.

As a freelance soloist, VeeRonna has played a variety of musical styles in settings from Caesar's Palace in Lake Tahoe to prelude music for the Bolshoi Ballet at the Chandler Center for the Arts. She has performed for several theatre productions including The Sound of Music, Once Upon A Mattress, and A Child's Christmas in Wales. While VeeRonna has enjoyed playing these and other productions, her heart has always leaned towards the serving of others with the mesmerizing music of the harp.

For twenty years now, VeeRonna has made so many people delighted with her playing, making their special events far more memorable than they would have been had she not been there. VeeRonna has played for hundreds of wedding ceremonies, receptions, and cocktail parties.  She also plays therapeutic harp for Hospice of the Valley.

When she's not playing, VeeRonna loves to spend time with her husband and their three delightful children.