The Player: Maeve Gilchrist

“From the moment I was given my harp,” says Maeve Gilchrist, “I was making music, jamming with other musicians. The emphasis was not on individual mastery, but on connecting with other people through the conversation of music and creating a groove; we made a sound that was bigger than the sum of our parts.”

Gilchrist grew up in a family that was part of a community of musicians: “Both my parents were musically gifted and musically curious, and having a music critic father resulted in exposure to an incredibly wide array of music. We had the traditional Scottish and Irish music which was such an integral part of our home community; but dad would also regularly play artists ranging from Ravi Shankar to Pink Floyd. He also played a lot of ECM jazz in the house: Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek etc. My first introduction to those sounds were more modal, spacious, perhaps in keeping with the folk music happening around us. That was my path into jazz.“

Gilchrist tells me that she was ‘tinkling’ on the piano keys from a very young age, chuckling that, “I was barely able to reach the keys. My parents started me on piano lessons around the age of eight but shortly after they offered my twin sister, Orna and I the opportunity to learn more traditional instruments.”

Both of Gilchrist’s aunts were professional harpists: “My aunts very much put harp on the radar for me and helped expose me to the unique Baroque-era Irish harp repertoire.”

From the age of 10, Maeve attended the City of Edinburgh Music School: “It’s an incredible facility that exposed me not just to the colours and palette of classical music, but embraced my traditional roots.”

The course also exposed Gilchrist to more jazz.

“In the traditional scene I had always been drawn towards the ‘funky’ chords that some of the backers used. Syncopation and colours that I liked, but couldn’t identify. Starting to learn about seventh chords and blues scales opened up a world of colour that I’ve continued to draw on to this day.”

Gilchrist went on to study at Berklee College of Music: “At the time, Berklee didn’t have a non-classical harp programme, and I attended as a voice major who played some piano and harp. But as I met astounding musicians from all over the world, I quickly realised that my facility lay in my harp playing.”

So what kind of harp was Gilchrist playing? After all, the harp comes in various shapes and sizes with different string configurations....

“I remember my parents rented me a small (Celtic) harp and for the first few months of owning it, before starting lessons, I started to play on my own," she explains. "It was only once I touched base with a teacher that they pointed out I was playing the instrument backwards!”

She continues: “I currently play a Thormahlen Ceili harp and I tour with a Thormahlen MG model – a model that they created especially for me to support the amount of touring I’ve been doing in recent years. Thormahlen Harps is a small, family business based in Corvallis, Oregon. I met them at a festival in North Carolina when I was just out of college. I guess they must have liked what they heard because a few months later, a huge package arrived outside my door. They had sent me one of their instruments: a beautiful black lacquered Ceili harp with an inlaid Heron on the side. It was a bold move! I could have hated the instrument!

"But I absolutely loved it. I immediately sold my gut strung harp that I was touring with (a beautiful instrument but too temperamental for touring) and bought a second Ceili so that I’d have a backup.

"Since then, I’ve worked closely with Dave Thormahlen to create the slightly smaller and lighter MG model which has the same range and string spacing but has got rid of any excess wood to fit in my flight case and remain under the weight limit. The older I get, the more I want to shed gear and bring only the bare essentials. At this point I’ve not met a harp that I enjoy playing more than the Ceili or MG but I’m always open to new sounds.”

I’m curious to know what strings Gilchrist uses.

“I use Savarez Alliance fluorocarbon strings, as they are malleable stylistically and very stable, which is good for touring.”

The harp isn’t usually associated with electronics and amplification. However, Gilchrist is not your ‘normal’ harpist!

“I enjoy bringing in a slightly electronically manipulated sound to my harp," she says. "I play with reverbs and delays - particularly analogue-sounding ones and occasionally I’ll choose to play through a tube amp. On my pedal board right now I have a Walrus Audio Slö reverb, a freeze pedal (to create occasional sustains) and the MXR Carbon Copy Delay pedal.

"I use a built in pickup made by Dusty Strings in Seattle that uses three inbuilt piezo pickups. I usually combine it with some kind of condenser mic for the lowest octave that gives a lot of warmth to the instrument.”

Gilchrist’s oeuvre is testament to the idea that where there is a blurring of musical genres, some of the most arresting, soulful and truly inspirational music is created.