Maeve Gilchrist

I was lucky to catch Maeve Gilchrist at The Falcon in Marlboro, NY last night. She was sitting in with cellist, singer and songwriter Ben Sollee.

Maeve grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland, in a family of musicians. She has been playing the clasarch (celtic harp as we call it here in the States), for twenty years. By the looks of her, she must've started quite young.

For those of you who don't know, the celtic harp is not a shrunken down version of the large elaborate orchestral harps we've seen, but a traditional instrument. This one is made by Thormahlen Harps. This is the Ceili model. Closer examination of the harp reveals fluorocarbon strings which are more practical for changing weather and the touring musician than traditional gut strings.

Her music goes way beyond the whimsy, etherical music commonly associated with harp music. She played this beautiful song last night, as a solo.

Maeve teaches harp at the Berklee College of Music, the school that gave her a full scholarship to attend when she was 17 years old. She studied jazz, merging her "two worlds of folk and improvisation" (http://www.berklee.edu/people/maeve-gilchrist). She lives in Brooklyn, NY. Check out her website here: http://maevegilchristmusic.com/