Alison Kinnaird - The Silver String

(November 2004) 13 tracks: Laura Bhisa * Tweedside (Mary Scott * The Flower of Yarrow) * Cumh Ioarla Wigton * The Horseman's Port * Lude's Lament * The Batell of Harloe (The March of Donald * Lord of the Isles * To the Battle of Harlaw) * Cumha Eachainn Ruaidh nan Cath * Taladh Dhomhnaill Ghuirm * Dubh an Tomaidh * Port Gordon * Ayrshire Lasses * Dance of the Dead * Air by Fingal III * Psalmsong

DVD features: 3 films with music * Alison's glass artworks * awards section * discography * publications * sample audio tracks and more.

Alison has a dual career as a harpist and glass artist, and this CD is accompanied by a DVD featuring both her music and her glass work.

Alison Kinnaird's seminal album The Harp Key was released in 1979. Her rediscovery of a repertoire for the Scottish harp, asserting its role as a solo instrument, rather than that of drawing-room song accompaniment, marked the beginning of the great revival of interest in the Scottish harp.

The following years brought important collaborations between Alison and virtuoso American harper Ann Heymann (The Harper's Land), and also with the great Gaelic singer, Christine Primrose (The Quiet Tradition). She recorded as part of the group Mac-talla, and as a guest with Battlefield Band on two CDs for the National Trust for Scotland.

This album again brings back lost gems of the Scottish harp repertoire. Almost every track is directly connected with the harp, either having been composed for the instrument, or in the case of the only song on the album, beautifully sung by Christine Primrose, the clarsach is mentioned in the words.

The DVD introduces her harp music as an overlay in her skilled work as an artist in glass. It features music, information and insights into her glass installations, showing the human figure surrounded by the patterns made when harp notes are played into a computer.

Alison also includes some of her own original compositions, which blend seamlessly with Scots and Gaelic music from older times.

Alison Kinnaird (gut and wire strung Scottish harps, bray harp, cello) with Ann Heymann (wire strung clarsach), Charlie Heymann (bones), Christine Primrose (vocal), Alasdair White (fiddle, whistle), Mike Katz (whistle) and Robin Morton (concertina).