Alison Kinnaird - The Silver String (Album & Films)
A long awaited release, 'The Silver String' is Alison Kinnaird's most recent album and the thirteen tracks are a selection of her own compositions and traditional tunes. Alison plays gut and wire strung harps and cello and is joined on the album by Ann Heyman (wirestrung clarsach), Charlie Heymann (bones), Alasdair White (fiddle), Mike Katz (whistle), Christine Primrose (Gaelic song) and Robin Morton (concertina).
Alison is recognised worldwide as one of the foremost exponents of traditional Scottish harp music and her seminal 1978 album 'The Harp Key' (Crann nan Teud) marked the beginning of the great revival in Scottish harp. She has been researching the repertoire of the harp in Scotland for more than twenty-five years, written several books of harp music, and co-authored 'The Tree of Strings', the first published history of the harp in Scotland . Dividing her time between her two careers as a glass engraver and a professional Scottish harp player, Alison was recognised for her contribution to artistic and musical spheres in 1997 when awarded an MBE.
Included with the CD is a free DVD featuring three short films relating to Alison`s music and the other side of her artistic endeavour, as a glass artist with work held in many major collections including The V&A (London), The Royal Scottish Museum (Edinburgh), The Scottish Parliament Collection (Edinburgh), Corning Museum of Glass (New York), Kelvingrove Museum & Art Gallery (Glasgow).
"This is Scottish traditional music at it's very best, something to be proud to be part of, thrilling to hear and humbling to realise the lack of extent of our knowledge..."
"...yet another extraordinary example of her mastery of all forms of Scottish traditional music....the music alone is enough to make this CD essential, the glass art videos simply take her vision to a whole new level"
Folk Harp Journal
"Rarely have such ancient themes been so successfully meshed with modern images, techniques and technology. This is a truly ground-breaking project, fully recognized with great artistry"
Track list: 1. Laura Bhisa 2. Tweedside / Mary Scott, the Flower of Yarrow 3. Cumh Iorla Wigton 4. The Horseman's Port 5. Lude's Lament 6. The Batell Of Harloe / The March of Donald, Lord of the Isles, to the Battle of Harlaw 7. Cumha Eachainn Ruaidh Nan Cath 8. Taladh Dhomhnaill Ghuirm 9. Dubh An Tomaidh 10. Port Gordon 11. Ayrshire Lasses / Dance of the Dead 12. Air By Fingal III 13. Psalmsong
Artists on this album:
Alison Kinnaird, Ann Heyman (wirestrung clarsach), Charlie Heymann (bones), Alasdair White (fiddle), Mike Katz (whistle), Christine Primrose (Gaelic song) and Robin Morton (concertina)
Label: Temple Records
The CD of this album comes with an 'all region' NTSC format DVD, which should play on all DVD players.
The downloaded version of this album includes a 33min video (mp4 format) of the films from the DVD, contained within the downloaded zip folder.
Temple Records Catalogue Number:
CD - COMD 2096
Download - DD 2096
Produced by Robin Morton
Recording Engineered by Ewan MacGregor and Robin Morton