Hartford Courant Highlights Professor's Mountaintop Quest

Hiking to a mountain’s peak is an accomplishment on its own. So is being a distinguished saxophone player. Combine them into one amazing feat, and you have University of Hartford Professor Carrie Koffman’s story. 

But she's just getting started. Koffman is exploring highpoints at home and in other countries, and playing her saxophone at each. Since December alone, that includes Mount Kilimanjaro and highpoints in Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. 

Koffman has embarked on a performance art project called, “Carries Weight,” as a way of exploring what it means to carry weight—how it can be a burden or a privilege, and indicate influence or importance, as well as the advantages and disadvantages, and who carries weight and why. (The Hartford Courant recently wrote about her endeavor.)

She’s carrying her saxophone with her to each destination—the highest points of certain areas, including other countries and states of New England and beyond. As a professor of instrumental studies within The Hartt School at UHart for the past 20 years, she’s accustomed to playing saxophone in classrooms with students, or on stage in concerts.

“My soprano saxophone, in a lightweight gig bag with the straps removed, weighs exactly 5 pounds. Any backpacker knows that this is not an insignificant amount of weight when you must carry everything that you need to survive, but it is also not a prohibitive burden,” Koffman explains. “I am carrying the extra weight of my soprano saxophone not for punitive reasons, but as a physical manifestation of the questions I am asking.”

As Koffman studies the idea of carrying weight, she’s documenting her progress on her website, while also sharing stories of others along the way. Koffman expects the project to last for years, though she plans to reach a significant number of highpoints this year.

Koffman is embracing the work of other artists as well by commissioning a series of short solo pieces to play on her saxophone, including one from University President Greg Woodward, and partnering with a Hartford Art School alumnus, Lyn Harper, who created a series of miniature ceramic art sculptures specifically for distribution on highpoints. Leaving a small sculpture at a highpoint is symbolizing ideas of setting down the weight we carry, knowing when it’s time to pass a weight onto others, knowing when to share power and influence, and much more.

“The project is designed to be an inspiration to others, as well as an ongoing opportunity to create contemplative experiences around the ideas of power, influence, and respect,” Koffman says.