A Harper’s Favourites is now stocked by The Harp Studio 24th April 2024
A Harper’s Favourites, Karen’s latest lever harp book is now also available from The Harp Studio in Wales, along with previous lever harp publications A Harper’s Yuletide and the graded three volume Clarsach Collection ones. Ideal if you need new strings as well or want to buy a variety of sheet music (or even a new harp?)
Read the full article online here
Vertex Festival: Harpist to perform in West Kilbride
26th October
By Rob Adams
A BAROQUE harp with its own built-in amplification device will feature in a concert by a leading Scottish harp player in West Kilbride.
The bray harp was designed to cut through the noise of dances and gatherings in castles and the houses of the landed gentry in Scotland during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
It’s one of three harps that leading Scottish harp player Karen Marshalsay will be bringing to the Barony Centre at West Kilbride Village Hall on Sunday, November 5 for the Vertex Festival along with the more familiar modern gut-strung clarsach and the wire-strung harp from the Gaelic tradition.
“Harp players were the ceilidh band leaders of the day back in Renaissance times,” said Karen.
She continued: “And the bray harp was the instrument they played. Each string has a 'bray' – a small piece of wood – that creates a buzzing effect, not unlike the sitar. If you put that together with a crumhorn and a tabor, or hand drum, that would have been the band that people danced to.”
Karen has worked with some of folk and traditional music’s foremost musicians, including the founder of the internationally regarded group Boys of the Lough, singer-flautist Cathal McConnell.
She is a member of the long-established Scottish group the Whistlebinkies and will be playing traditional tunes and original compositions from her album, The Road to Kennacraig, which she released just before the Covid pandemic.
“Even now, I still see the concerts I’m playing currently as the promotional tour because the pandemic meant the tour I had booked had to be rearranged and then rearranged again, which has been the case for many musicians,” she added.
The album was produced by Robin Morton, who oversaw classic albums including Scottish folk music hero Dick Gaughan’s definitive recording, Handful of Earth.
Unfortunately, Morton has since died, meaning that The Road to Kennacraig was his final production.
So his contribution, says Karen, has become all the more special. As well as playing harp music she will talk informally about the tunes and the harps.
She continued: “Robin was great to work with because he was such a stickler for melody and clarity. He really made me work and I think the album sounds better due to his input.
“The harp has associations with angels, of course, although the bray harp isn’t quite so angelic. It often comes as quite a surprise to audiences because it looks as you might expect a harp to look but it sounds entirely different from the other two.”
For more information about the event and tickets visit Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/karen-marshalsay-with-fraser-fifield-and-graeme-stephen-tickets-725665153007
new tune book out may 12th - a harper’s favourites
Karen is launching a new book for elementary to intermediate level players of gut-strung harp on Friday May 12th.
This book features some of Karen’s favourite tunes, along with some of her own compositions. The pieces are arranged for elementary to intermediate gut or lever harp players, with grace notes written in as Karen plays them, and some suggestions for fingering and playing tunes in sets. Stories about the tunes or where Karen got them from give context to the pieces and can help inform repertoire choices and introductions. This varied selection is mostly Scottish with tunes from the Eliza Ross ms., the Straloch lute ms., the Angus Fraser collection, pipe strathspeys, an Irish jig learnt from Cathal McConnell, a Northumbrian air learnt from playing with The Whistlebinkies, a Church of Scotland hymn, and others learnt over the years from various players, sessions and travels.
18 tunes, including 5 of Karen’s own, published for the first time.
Creetown Bound Harp Player Has D&G Tune Published
From Dumfries & Galloway What’s Going On? Creetown-bound harp player has D&G tune published (dgwgo.com)
13 April 2023
A harp player who has had a tune she wrote with a Dumfries and Galloway connection published in a prestigious new collection of music plays at Quarrymen’s Arts Centre in Creetown next Friday, 21st April.
Edinburgh-based Karen Marshalsay wrote J.S. Kennedy from Stranraer, a dedication to her nephew John, especially for The Dynamic Scottish Harper’s Companion. The book is aimed at adventurous harp players and was launched at Edinburgh International Harp Festival last weekend.
“It’s great to have your tunes included in collections like these,” says Karen. “The whole point about writing new music in the traditional style is to have it played, whether it be in informal sessions or by other musicians in their concert repertoires. And The Dynamic Scottish Harper’s Companion, being quite high profile, certainly gives your music exposure.”
Karen has had her music played in a variety of settings from folk groups to orchestral performances.
As well as playing the sort of solo concert that brings her to Quarrymen’s, Karen has recently joined the long-established folk group The Whistlebinkies, who were the first ensemble to combine the Celtic harp, fiddle and pipes in regular performances.
She has also worked with Irish music legend Cathal McConnell, of Boys of the Lough, and Gaelic song and piping authority Allan MacDonald, of the Glenuig piping family. In 2019 Karen was invited to arrange and perform her own compositions with the award-winning Russian String Orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival.
“Playing with the orchestra was an incredible experience because they were all brilliant musicians,” she says. “The way they worked together so closely was like an expanded string quartet and they enveloped you in this beautifully warm sound. Unfortunately, their leader, Misha Rachlevsky has been ill and with the current international situation not helping Russian musical exports, it’s unlikely they’ll be back here in the foreseeable future. Hearing them playing my music was special, though.”
Karen’s concert at Quarrymen’s will feature J.S. Kennedy from Stranraer alongside music from The Road to Kennacraig, the album she released just before Covid struck.
“I’ll be playing all three harps from the Scottish tradition in the concert,” she says. “There’s the modern, gut-strung clarsach that people who listen to traditional music will be familiar with. I also play the wire-strung harp from the Gaelic tradition and the dark horse of the harp family, the bray harp. This looks like a normal harp, except it’s a bit slimmer, but it has a very distinctive sound that often takes people by surprise.”
Book your tickets HERE
Keep up to date with events at Quarrymen’s Arts Centre By Clicking HERE
FOR THE ADVENTUROUS PLAYER…
13 April
A new folio has just been published by The Clarsach Society at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival last weekend. Called The Dynamic Scottish Harper’s Companion, it features 10 new arrangements and compositions at an advanced level.
I was happy to arrange a set of dance tunes for it and even wrote a new reel to end the set which comprises Nellie’s Strathspey, Silver Spire, Lassie wi’ the Yellow Coatie, and J. S. Kennedy from Stranraer. The strathspey I learned from Dougie Pincock in a Feis Rois tin whistle class many years ago and the two traditional reels from playing with renowned piper Allan MacDonald.
The folio also features work by Anne Macdearmid, Patsy Seddon, Ingrid Henderson, Fiona Rutherford, Charlotte Petersen, Rachel Hair, Corrina Hewat and Maeve Gilchrist. It is dedicated to Eleanor Holley (1937-2022) and is available here.
From The Courier 11 February 2023 Karen Marshalsay is a 'one-woman harp festival' bound for Crail (thecourier.co.uk)
Karen Marshalsay is a ‘one-woman harp festival’ bound for Crail
By Rob Adams
February 11 2023, 6.00pm
Karen Marshalsay’s Three Scottish Harps concerts do what they say on the tin – and a little bit more.
The Edinburgh-based musician, who plays at Crail Community Hall on Saturday February 18, actually takes four harps onto the stage, causing one observer to describe her as a “one-woman harp festival.”
The complete set
Karen is one of the few harp players in Scotland to specialise in the “complete set” of Scottish harps.
“Folk music audiences will be familiar with the gut-strung, levered clarsach as it’s the harp that has been at the forefront of harp playing on the Scottish traditional music scene over the past 50 years,” says Karen.
“But there’s also the wire-strung harp from the Gaelic tradition and the harp whose sound often takes people by surprise, the bray harp.”
This instrument, although narrower, looks much like the other harps but despite dating back to the Renaissance period, it has what amounts to a built-in amplification system.
“Brays are small pieces of wood that sit against the strings and give this buzzing, almost sitar-like tone,” says Karen.
A harp for a big house
“Bray harps were the harps that were played in musical gatherings in big houses back in the day and this buzzing tone allowed the harper to be heard above the hubbub.
“The typical ceilidh band back then comprised a harp, a crumhorn and a hand drum.”
Although she’ll be playing with just her harps for company in Crail – the baby version of the wire-strung Gaelic harp is the bonus addition – Karen has played in settings ranging from duos to orchestras.
Karen will be playing traditional tunes in Crail as well as her own compositions.
When not giving her Three Scottish Harps concerts she works with long-established Scottish folk band The Whistlebinkies and with the founder of popular Irish band Boys of the Lough, Cathal McConnell’s trio.
She has also appeared with piper, singer and Gaelic music authority Allan MacDonald, of the revered West Highland piping family, and as soloist with the internationally acclaimed Russian String Orchestra, for whom she orchestrated her own compositions.
“Playing with the orchestra was an incredible experience because they were all brilliant musicians,” she says.
“The way they worked together so closely was like an expanded string quartet and they enveloped you in this beautifully warm sound.
“Unfortunately, their leader, Misha Rachlevsky has been ill and with the current international situation not helping Russian musical exports, it’s unlikely they’ll be back here in the foreseeable future. Hearing them playing my music was special, though.”
Traditional tunes
In Crail, where she is playing as part of the Scotland on Tour project that’s designed to get musicians back on the road following the pandemic, Karen will be playing traditional tunes as well as her own compositions.
Many of these are drawn from her solo album, The Road to Kennacraig, which received glowing reviews, including four stars from The Scotsman, on its release in 2019.
“I know the East Neuk of Fife quite well, having visited the area often,” says Karen.
“But I’ve never actually played in Crail before. So I’m looking forward to playing in the Community Hall and following one of my favourite musicians, the French bassist Renaud Garcia-Fons, who played in the venue a few years ago.”
Crail Community Hall, Saturday February 18, 8pm.Tickets £12 at Scotland on Tour.
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HARP ORNAMENTATION- new youtube series
4 May 2022
Ornamentation is something I have been fascinated to explore for many years now, as seen in the book I produced in 2012 called Key Techniques for Harp, and I am currently working on a 7 part video series on techniques for ornamentation. These are free to watch. The first one is at the head of this page and future episodes will be posted on my YouTube channel weekly. You can download an accompanying PDF of supporting materials either for free (or a donation) for episode 1, or for a small charge (episodes 2-7).