Summary: <p>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 <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53241/the-ballad-of-the-harp-weaver" target="_blank">poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay</a>, with the Rasa String Quartet, remotely, for the podcast.</p> <p>Setlist:</p> <p>“The Harpweaver” Chris Stout's “Compliments to the Bon Accord Ale House” / “Ancestral Mud” “The Calm” with guitarist Conor Hearn.</p> <p> </p> <p><a href="https://maevegilchristmusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-harpweaver">The Harpweaver by Maeve Gilchrist</a></p>
