Edinburgh International Harp Festival 2022

Latest

March 16, 2022

The brilliant Edinburgh International Harp Festival – now in its 41st! year – is back to live this year, after two years online throughout the pandemic. In fact, it will be hybrid, its wealth of courses and concerts now accessible regardless of your travel situation. We’re proud to sponsor Tristan Le Govic’s performance at the festival’s opening concert, on April 8 at 19:30 – see here to get your tickets.

Our partners in the UK: Telynau Vining Harps! L-R: Heather Downie (Scotland) and Elen Vining (Wales)

Of course, that’s not all. The Edinburgh programme is always exceptional: joyful, varied, and celebrating the lever harp in all its many facets.

There could not be a better occasion to explore Scottish harp music: this year, you can enjoy the world premiere of Maeve Gilchrist‘s Sharmanka Suite, which features features specially-filmed footage in the Sharmanka Kinetic Gallery in Glasgow: Maeve was fascinated by the mechanical sculptures in the gallery as a child. Savourna Stevenson (harp) and Steve Kettley (saxophone) will be playing Scottish trad, jazz and everything in between; Corrina Hewat‘s The Song of the Oak and the Ivy (for six harps) will also be performed. Calum and Màiri Macleod will be singing and harping in Gaelic, and Wendy Stewart will present music from both sides of the Scottish / English western border. Fraya Thomsen, winner of the Princess Margaret of the Isles 2021 Competition, will perform her compositions and arrangements from the far North-West of Scotland. 

Cormac De Barra and Siobhan Armstrong, with sean-nós singer Doimnic Mac Giolla Bride, will showcase ancient and modern Irish music. Ben Creighton-Griffiths will also be there with violinist Adrien Chevalier and Ashley John Long, bass: together, they are the Transatlantic Hot Club, another Camac favourite! The EIHF also never forgets the classical harp, this year starring Gabriella Dall’Olio. 

Our UK partners Telynau Vining Harps also have a new Scottish salespoint, headed by Heather Downie. A massive shipment of Camac harps has just arrived at Vining HQ, and Elen Vining and Heather look forward to welcoming you to the exhibition stand. 

To whet your appetite for the music to come, you can also enjoy Tristan’s YouTube concert for us, filmed during lockdown – over @CamacHarpsOfficial on YouTube, or just watch it right here!