Maeve Gilchrist

Celtic Harp Innovator Maeve Gilchrist Weav-Weav-Weaves Wonderful Things

Soundcheck | Dec 21, 2020

Scottish-born Maeve Gilchrist writes and plays new music for an old instrument: the Celtic harp, or Lever harp. Gilchrist is a curious innovator who has played, performed, and recorded with the prog-folk quartet DuoDuo and the Grammy-winning Silkroad Ensemble. In her own original music, some of it drawn from a folk and traditional music well, she has worked on sonic explorations of Celtic harp as a rhythmic instrument, which is hard to do because of the Lever harp’s limited ability to control the sustain of a note. (But Gilchrist has found a way to trick the ear by muting the strings with nylon stockings!) She performs her original compositions, including “The Harpweaver” based on poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay, with the Rasa String Quartet, remotely, for the podcast.

Setlist:

“The Harpweaver”
Chris Stout's “Compliments to the Bon Accord Ale House” / “Ancestral Mud”
“The Calm” with guitarist Conor Hearn.

 

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