BIOGRAPHY
Welsh harpist Eira Lynn Jones combines the three strands of her
illustrious career as performer, teacher and composer. Her harp adventures have taken her all over the world including: performing at the Hollywood Bowl, LA; a Recital in Reykjavik, Iceland for the Nordic Watercolour Society; playing for the then HRH Prince Charles in Spain and tours to Japan, Hong Kong and USA. She regularly works with the Hallé, BBC Philharmonic and Opera North. More eclectic engagements include: recordings with the Black Dyke Brass Band and the heavy metal band Venom; accompanying Aled Jones on Songs of Praise and solo tours; directing massed harps under Dippy the Dinosaur at the Natural History Museum, London and appearing as harpist Lucinda Jane Gray in two episodes of Coronation Street. CD releases include two solo albums … from within and Forgotten Dreams which received critical acclaim. “I love the album … a diversity of music, a very accomplished technique and your heart shining through” Alan Stivell
Fragments, with flautist Anna Rosa Mari, featured on Apple Music
Classical AM Top 50 playlist. Most recently, she has recorded new works
by Martin Ellerby: Three Choral Psalms, with the Kantos Chamber
Choir, and his Concerto for Clarinet, Harp and Strings, with the Royal
Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Eira is widely recognised as one of the UK’s leading harp teachers and was Head of Harp at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester for nearly 30 years. Highlights include: harp ensemble concerts at the Huddersfield International Contemporary Music Festival, broadcast on Radio 3; Artistic Director of the RNCM International Harp Weeks and leading the RNCM Young Harps Project. She has given workshops in
South Africa, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Greece and now gives private
lessons to harpists worldwide: from Newark to New Zealand!
As a composer, she is inspired by the stories around her, from medieval
tales to contemporary events. She was selected as composer for Illumine
Theatre’s audio drama Tremolo, now available on major podcast
channels. In March she collaborated with the multi-award winning dance
company, DanceSyndrome, whose members have Down’s Syndrome.
They performed her work The Sunken Forest: a retelling of the Welsh
legend, Cantre’r Gwaelod and the rising sea levels today.
www.eiralynnjones.com
PROGRAMME
MOSAICS
Au Jardin ~ Venise ~ Ping-Pong from Pour les Enfants by Alexandre Tansman
La fille aux chevaux de lin by Claude Debussy (tr. Eira Lynn Jones)
Li ndsey Dances – Steep Hill – Bolingbroke – Gibralter Point – Tattershall = The Stump by Martin Ellerby
Interlude from a Ceremony of Carols by Benjamin Britten
Time Spinner by Esther Swift
INTERVAL
Glenlivet – trad. Scottish
Cruit Gun Cheis, Ceall Gun Aba by Mary Ann Kennedy
Epitaph XVIII: Crio! (Aberfan) for clarsach by Martin Ellerby (World Premiere)
Crepuscule by William Alwyn
Knocking by Anne Appleby
Swan LK243 by Catriona McKay
Harpicide at Midnight by Pearl Chertok