I’d heard the name, but I wasn’t ready. Last month, before Dan Walsh’s Fixity project took the the stage in the cosy confines of the Bello Bar, a colossal harp and an unlikely array of gadgetry dominated the dias. Moments later, as Meabh McKenna took a cello bow and began a beautiful song concerned with blackbirds, I was changed. Breaking my heart whilst performing the near impossible tasks of groundbreaking extended techniques without an air of novelty. Another performance shortly after, in the hot sun of midday, I was astounded to find that daylight did nothing to diminish the wonder she effortlessly conjures.
Meabh McKenna has been celebrated as one of Ireland’s foremost young harpers, and has worked with such lauded luminaries as Aoife Nessa Frances and Maija Sofia. More recently, she came to my attention with solo performances wherein she transforms her instrument into a complex and total sonic world. A place where tradition meets innovation, and songs older than tarmacadam are imbued with spontaneous composition. Once I’d managed to coax my jaw from the floor, I had to find out a little more to introduce this incredible musician to those lucky people yet discover Meabh McKenna. I wish I could see your faces, eyes lit up like a baby eating ice cream for the first time.
So Meabh, what can you tell us about this magical endeavour you’ve undertaken?
I suppose it’s a really interesting project to explain. It’s all come together, quite organically, over time. I’ve been gathering elements and objects, and sound worlds, songs and melodies. It shifts a lot in different spaces. A gig one week could be folk songs with some improvisation inbetween arrangements, and the next week could be a noise set with melodies and textural sounds. It varies a lot. I’ve just been enjoying understanding how I can hold a space with all of my favourite sounds, and what can be pulled into being in that space, energetically.
Your approach to the harp, I have never seen anything like that.
I feel like a lot of what I do is trying to work around having the physical limitations of my instrument. The harp is a percussion instrument, so you play the sound and it’s gone. During lockdown, I started playing the early wire strung harp, and that has this incredible ability to resonate, for minutes. It made me realise that I really enjoyed slowing down, playing less notes with more intention. In that space I came back to the pedal harp, and found myself wanting to draw the sound out, and to have more space. I started using effects, electronic pedals, and using things like the bow. It makes sense when you stare at a harp long enough. You’re like, ‘Oh, a double bass is just four of those bass strings.”
It’s a unique way of looking at a harp.
I got to explore the potential of the instrument through playing with bands, which made me look at it in a different way than coming from a classical background. I started looking at it as a source of what possible noises I could make to serve the song. If you’re playing with a band, everything is in service of the song. It was a real step away from trying to be a virtuosic classical or jazz player.
It was a different direction to think, okay, this song needs a bass texture… looking past being a harpist and trying to be an instrumentalist, and trying to be a band member, I reached into a whole different space of sounds that I really enjoy introducing.
Considering you’re exploring hitherto uncharted sonic territories, who inspires you, and can you tell us a little about your background in musical life?
I’m lucky to have lived in a lot of different sound worlds. Growing up playing piano, my favourite music to play were impressionist composers like Debussy but I loved playing contemporary classical and Irish traditional music. I was really lucky to play with amazing songwriters like Maija Sofia. Her first record was one of the first times I had recorded with a band. I came in and improvised on tracks for ‘Bath Time’, which was so exciting and a real honour to be a part of her musical journey, which has been so inspiring. Working with Aoife Nessa Frances was an incredible and creatively joyful experience. Her invitation to improvise on Protector has been life changing and really expansively unlocked something for me for which I am so grateful. Getting to join songwriters inside of their songs is a really sacred experience for me.
I really enjoy being a session musician, and I used to do a lot more of that in a classical context, but it’s gradually shifted more into the experimental, folk, rock and roll, and improvised music where I get to explore using the harps in a different way, or whatever way serves the song through my own voice. In my own improvised music like in my new collaborative project géis, the sound is an invocation of presence serving the space and the listener. It’s a very spiritual and joyful practice for me about connection. I was really lucky to spend a lot of time thinking and writing into this practice during an Art in the Contemporary World MFA in NCAD. I also have been incredibly lucky to collaborate with artist Isadora Epstein on weaving music into her magical bubble worlds that appear about the place!
There are much worse ways to introduce yourself to the current music scene.
I have a real interest in jazz and jazz harp. At one point I was writing a lot about the history of the harp getting into jazz music. I got to go to Brazil and study with some jazz harpists, and returned from that experience really inspired. Dorothy Ashby would have been my biggest hero at that time, and Alice Coltrane. I always listen to Joanna Newsom, as a songwriter. Everybody hears a harp and they say Joanna, and it’s like “Yes! She’s the best!”. What she does defies logic. She’s the purest essence of an artistic genius, and I think we’re blessed to live in the same age as her.
Your approach with traditional music is utterly inspiring, also.
Early music would have been a big influence on me as well. I started researching the history of the harp, and got involved with The Historical Harp Society of Ireland, and I’m really lucky to play the wire strung harp as well, which I rent from them. That’s the sound of the Harp that would have been played in Ireland a thousand years ago, so I play some of the old repertoire on that. It’s a whole rich vein of interest in this group of influences, and in between it all, I got really into singing again and found my voice through going to things like The Night That Larry Got Stretched, or song sessions really brought a whole different aspect of performance back into my life.
I was quite shut down, and had some performance anxiety issues. It was a real problem for me during my time performing classical music, and I didn’t think I was ever going to figure a way past that, and I was lucky enough to get brought into the fold by the community of singers in Dublin. I think song sessions, and the reverence and way people listen to each other, the generosity of that space, the love and culture of the material. It’s un-endingly inspiring for me as well.
Words: Adhamh O’Caoimh
