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Gwen Màiri
Very good indeed... The style and content, while traditionally based, is largely contemporary in its delivery with and element of the classical formality I tend to associate with the harp... a fine voice with a thrilling vibrato. Her playing is faultless, nimble and precise, and yet with a feel for the material. Undoubtedly one of my favourites this year.
‘Mentro’ means ‘to venture’ and harpist Gwen Màiri makes a persuasive sally with this debut album under her own name, a delicately spun collection of Welsh music. Bright, articulate harping and singing... an exhilarating flowing current... her voice hangs over crystalline strings...
Traditional Music
Instrumentation
- Gwen Màiri - Clàrsach and voice
Repertoire
Firmly rooted in Welsh tradition, Gwen’s 2019 album, Mentro, weaves an intricate web of the old and the new with her contemporary but traditionally influenced style. Composing songs out of old poetry or reworking familiar music, the result is a delicate and refreshing album which captures a unique perspective of Welsh music.
In 2021, Gwen released Douze Noëls. A set of traditional Basque Christmas music based on Charles Bordes’s collection gathered during the 1890s. Arranged for solo clàrsach and funded by Creative Scotland, this album presents a new form of seasonal music. Sparkling, quirky, exciting and soothing melodies take us through the Christmas story.
Biography
Gwen Màiri is a graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Her career has included work with professional orchestras such as the RSNO, SCO, the Orchestra of Scottish Opera, chamber groups (including BabaYaga), teaching in schools and on youth folk music courses, publishing books of music for lever harp through Alaw, playing for weddings and events and also performing her own music. Gwen represented Wales at Festival Interceltique Lorient 2019, performing solo each night to audiences of thousands at the Stade du Moustoir as well as in the Wales Pavilion, Église St. Louis and Reservoir Enclos du Port. She was a tutor for five years to the National Youth Folk Ensemble of Wales and lead courses and performed (most recently in 2023) at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival.
Despite traditional music being ever-present all through Gwen’s life, she studied classical pedal harp at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) and it was only after graduating that she began to turn seriously towards folk music. A particular turning point was the birth of her first son which reawakened within her a love of the Welsh traditional songs she had been brought up with. Developing from there and bringing her Welsh and Scottish influences to the duo, Tornish, and then being part of the 2013 ground-breaking Welsh music project, 10 Mewn Bws, led to Welsh music being her main passion. Her playing can also be heard on the albums of Gwilym Bowen Rhys (Radio 2 Folk Awards 2019 Folk Singer of the Year nominee and Wales Folk Awards Best Solo Artist) - O Groth y Ddaear (2016) and Arenig (2019). In the summer of 2020, Gwen was commissioned by the National Library of Wales to compose music inspired by their sounds archive as part of the UK wide Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project (UOSH) led by the British Library. One of her compositions was recently included in the 2023 Faber Music publication, Folk Tunes from the Women.
Her first album, Mentro (meaning to venture or to dare), was released on the Erwydd label in October 2019 and has received many complimentary reviews including 4 stars in the Scotsman, Songlines Magazine and RnR Magazine and 5 stars from Folk Wales Online. In 2021 with funding from Creative Scotland, Gwen released Douze Noëls; a collection of traditional Christmas music from the Basque Country.
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