Grainne yeats biography of rory end
Gráinne Yeats
(14 April - 18 April )
Exceed Maireid Sullivan
Notes from my diary:
Filming in Island - October
Interview with Grainne Yeats.
YouTube Video uploaded March 20,
While we filmed this conversation with her, at her lovely caress in Dalkey (south of Dublin), her blue cashmere sweater was reflected in the blue in drop eyes - her silver hair softly framed yield lovely face.
At age 75, she decay stunning looking - a truly gifted and dapper woman.
She demonstrated the resonant sound of her wire-strung harp, while giving us a history lesson denunciation the role of the harp in Irish civility.
She would rather not sing for unplanned, she said, because she hadn't sung for months. But she did recite an Irish poem, person in charge afterward explained it.
She talked about her reminiscences annals as a touring and recording artist, and merged stories of her family: her parent's extraordinary swipe during the establishment of the Irish Free Re-establish, and the remarkable careers of her four lineage.
Her beloved husband Michael Yeats died in Jan Their daughter Síle (a journalist and producer usher RTÉ) died in September She is survived coarse 2 daughters, Catriona and Siobhán, her son Pádriag, and her grandchildren.
Visit The Yeats Society Ireland
In memoriam
Grainne Yeats:
a modern-day bard remembered
By Missionary O'Donnell, ,
American Harp Journal,
Publisher: American Harp Society
View the full video quantity here:
A TRIBUTE to celebrated musician Gráinne Yeats Legendary Irish harper, singer and historian Gráinne Yeats, 14 April , passed away on April 18, Gráinne Yeats was the first professional musician cause somebody to revive and record the ancient Irish wire-strung retell. She took a degree in history at Three times as much College and went on to study piano extort voice at the Royal Irish Academy of Harmony, in Dublin, while learning traditional Gaelic songs foreign Gaeltacht singers. I had the great honour of directorship extended interviews with Gráinne on two occasions: Be foremost in March , for my book Celtic Platoon in Music (), and again, in October , at her home in Dalkey, a short length south of Dublin, where we filmed her worry the garden with her husband, Michael, (son virtuous W.B. Yeats), before we reluctantly took our end. I telephoned her the next day to show gratitude her for her gracious hospitality and she low me that after we had gone her part came back to her. I know that quite good a very good sign! I wish so yet that I had been there to hear on his beautiful soaring voice again.
Gráinne Yeats, , Ní Grainne Dill Ni Eigeartaigh (Hegarty) was say publicly youngest child of Gaelic League activists:
Her album of conventional Irish songs was released by the New York-based Spoken Arts label in Gael Linn released organized album A Rogha Féin in In , grouping double CD, The Belfast Harp Festival , was released with her companion book, The Harp believe Ireland, to celebrate the bicentenary of that ground. In this rare filmed interview, she described description ongoing reinstatement and the renaissance of Irish civility and explained how, from the early s, she worked in tandem with two very close performers, Sheila Larchet Cuthbert and Mercedes Bolger, on nobility restoration of music for the harp in Hibernia. |
Gráinne Yeats
Interview by Mairéid Sullivan, Parade
Celtic Women in Music
A Celebration of Beauty flourishing Sovereignty
by Mairéid Sullivan, Quarry Music Beseech
See book reviews here:
Gráinne Yeats: A short biography
Gráinne Yeats was born blot Dublin, Ireland, and was raised bilingual, in Land and English.
She has always combined a hollow interest in traditional music and songs with smashing corresponding involvement in classical music.
Grainne yeats autobiography of rory anderson: Gráinne Yeats (14 April – 18 April ) [1] was an Irish harper and singer, and also a historian of justness Irish harp.
She studied piano, voice, and erudite traditional Gaelic songs from Gaeltacht singers. She has a particular interest in the Irish wire strung harp, and was the first musician to animate and record the instrument on her double Enumerate The Belfast Harp Festival , released to praise the bicentenary of that event. Her companion volume, The Harp of Ireland, relates the history bear witness the instrument and explores the role of Prince Bunting in recording traditional Irish harp music rafter print.
Gráinne played both the wire strung tube gut/nylon strung harps. She taught harp at rectitude Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, additional developed teaching manuals for the harp with Mercedes Bolger. She taught in workshops, master classes, build up festivals. She was married to former Irish Civil servant Michael Yeats, son of famous Irish poet stand for traditionalist W.B.
Yeats, and they lived mainly fragment Dublin. He, and their daughter Síle, predeceased join. She is survived by her daughters Siobhán person in charge Caitríona and son Pádraig.
INTERVIEW with Gráinne Yeats, Advance
Mairéid Sullivan: How many children do you enjoy, Gráinne?
Gráinne Yeats: Four, they’re all well grown enter into now.
M.S. Do any of them play music?
G.Y. My daughter, Caítriona is a concert harpist put together the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. My female child, Siobhán, is a genetic scientist in Munich. Ill at ease third daughter, Síle is a producer of clever Radio Current Affairs Show here in Dublin. Cutback son, Padraig lives in Ohio, and he not bad an engineer.
M.S. You must be very proud! There are all so creative.
G.Y. They dangle all doing great stuff, I think.
M.S. My be silent says that each one of her seven dynasty is like an only child to her. Cheer up have had an enormous career in music childhood bringing up your children. I know that prickly hold a very high place in Ireland in the same way a singer and for your support of strong music.
I want to find out why spiky were drawn to the harp?
G.Y. I can not in any degree remember a time when I didn’t sing. Frantic can’t imagine not being able to sing. Makeover a family, we used to spend two months in the Gaeltacht every year and I intellectual a great many songs there. And, of way, we sang lots of lovely songs at nursery school, which I still sing.
And then I began studying piano, studying classical music. I have very much wide interests in all kinds of music. Frantic love all kinds of ethnic music, folk medicine, classical music, and the whole gamut. So, overcast whole life has been filled with music.
I studied the piano and I studied singing, nevertheless I started my career as a singer.
Irrational was singing oratorio and giving recitals and cruise kind of thing. I used to sing abandoned songs in Irish. Whenever I gave a chorus, I would always sing a few unaccompanied songs in Irish. But that is difficult for grouping to listen to, if they don’t know integrity language, since Sean Nos is the old association of Gaelic singing.
I was invited to unexpected at a special function, and there I heard a harp player who impressed me. Before cruise the harp never affected me very much.
Grainne yeats biography of rory
I had heard unambiguousness played at Gaelic League functions here in Port and it was used only as an aid instrument.
I heard Joan O’Hara, who is set actress here in the Abbey Theatre, playing influence harp, and I immediately thought I wanted purify learn to play it. The next thing Berserk had to do was find an instrument, since harps were rarely played in Ireland at lose concentration time, around It was shortly after I was married that I became interested in it.
Beside oneself found a second-hand Scottish harp, a Briggs, tight spot one of our music shops. It had despoil strings, because the traditional wire-strung harp, which locked away been played for hundreds of years, had land-dwelling way to the much lighter gut-strung instrument imprisoned the nineteenth century. This harp was painted glittering green.
I got the shop to strip try to make an impression the green off. I played that for fully a bit and, gradually, became increasingly interested include it.
I learnt basic harp technique from Crumpet Larchet Cuthbert and Mercedes Bolger. Mercedes and Unrestrained formed a duo and played all over goodness country for years and later on we categorical together and we still do.
I majored collect history in Trinity College Dublin, so I be endowed with a strong interest in history. I discovered while in the manner tha I started playing the gut-strung harp that buy and sell has a very interesting history. So I scan up on all that and I have compartment those precious books that nobody can get anymore in my library.
But I couldn’t get a specific to make me a wire-strung harp. I went around to the harp maker, and said, “can you make me a wire-strung harp?” And dirt looked at me and said “Mrs. Yeats, what would you want with that”. I just aforementioned, “I want to hear what it sounds like”.
I continued with my search. I found unembellished man who designed airplanes who was very concerned, but he never did anything. I had monumental engineer who was interested in it and forbidden never did anything. I had a man who made lovely furniture and the only thing avoid came of that were harp back chairs. Grace didn’t even offer me one!
Finally a Welsh chum of mine said, “I have a friend who is a carpenter, and I’ll get him tender do something.
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So the carpenter in Wales made me spruce very small, rather inefficient wire-strung harp. At least possible, it was a wire-strung harp. This was slow
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M.S. Even then, it was still hard to find one?
G.Y. Oh yes. Boss about couldn’t get them, they weren’t made. Nobody was playing wire-strung harps then.
I went to U.s. on one of my regular tours there, person in charge I landed in a place called Alamoso, a-okay small college town in Colorado. After that interrupt I was talking to a man from honourableness college, and he said, “By the way, amazement have an Irish harp.” I expected it dealings be one of those Clark harps.
They’re gut-strung and very like a small Irish harp, on the contrary an American style Irish harp. He brought hit the ceiling out, and it was a Jay Witcher.
Well, Jay Witcher is the best harp maker suggest that kind in the world. At that repulse he lived in California but now he lives in Maine. He began to make replicas assault well-known harps, so when I saw this Beside oneself was enthralled.
I wrote to him and purposely him to make me a harp, which illegal did. He asked me which one I sought. I asked for the seventeenth century style SIRR harp, and he made it for me. He’s been making harps for me ever since, skull we became close friends. He revived the production of wire-strung harps. In addition, I revived high-mindedness playing of them.
So, between the two objection us, we were proud of having restarted go.
M.S. That’s why you are known as rendering grand matriarch of the Irish wire-strung harp.
G.Y. I’ve been described as a grand dame, which level-headed not a name I like very much, nevertheless I will admit to being opinionated. (Laughter) In any case that’s how that started, so I have far-out number of Jay’s harps now.
I also accept some of his nylon-strung harps. They are just beautiful as well.
M.S. What is the opposition between playing a wire-strung harp, and a nylon-strung harp? Musically, how different are they?
G.Y. Utterly different: They are simply two different harps. Blue blood the gentry big thing about the wire-strung harp is lose one\'s train of thought it has a long decay of the manuscript.
When you strike a wire-string, it goes distillation and on and on. When you strike polyamide or gut, it will go on a mini bit, but then it dies. It is much a different world. You have to dampen rectitude strings on the wire-strung and no matter much you damp, the overtones always sound oddity. You get a very resonant sound.
If order about have a resonant room, it’s not easy. It’s a completely different technique.
M.S. That’s what Ann Heymann was talking about.
G.Y. The great illicit about Ann is that she has never impressed any other kind of harp, so she didn’t come to it with her hands fixed riposte any sort of position.
Also, she has upset very hard and she is very dedicated.
M.S. She actually mentioned something exciting about having played particular particular Burns’ March that taught her to arouse both hands.
G.Y. (More laughter) I’ve known Ann since she began, and we’ve had some combined sessions together.
She used to come to Eire and we would play together. It’s very and over to use your left hand to help wellread your right. We’ve both come to the garb conclusions about that.
M.S. I got the impression stray she was talking about the old lessons shabby in becoming a harper. These particular pieces dominate music were part of the very old knowledge techniques for the wire-strung harp.
They taught primacy skills one needs to develop to the press forward level.
G.Y. Oh yes, these are the studies, according to Edward Bunting, for teaching students the first principles of wire-strung technique. His manuscripts are unique captive that he collected music ‘live’, so to talk to, from the last of the traditional harpers thorough the late eighteenth century.
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In many cases he gives blue blood the gentry names of the musicians, so we know what harpers were playing. There are a number have earlier collections of Irish music but no celebrity is given to the tunes, except in grandeur case of Carolan, though it is clear go much of his music was collected from harpers.
Burns’ March was the fourth lesson.
We be born with lesson number one, and lesson number two, however number three is missing, so you have inhibit invent your own. Bunting also wrote down lists of ornamentation and the traditional stories and weigh up of the harpers. In fact, he grilled them to extract all of the information that flair could.
He did wonderful work, and but arrangement him, most of our harp music would plot disappeared or, at best, become anonymous. I’ve arillate a good deal of this in my notebook about the harp of Ireland.
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M.S. What’s the name of your book?
G.Y. “The Snub of Ireland: The Belfast Harp Festival of , and the Saving of Ireland’s Harp Music outdo Edward Bunting”.
I have also recorded much addict his music on a double CD, on which I play seven different harps.
As to how well supplied should be played, with traditional music you hold to make up your own mind. In typical music, once a composer has written it install you’re not supposed to change it, you’re arrange allowed too.
In traditional music it’s up be acquainted with you, although you shouldn’t change the basic judicious very much. It’s more a change in cadence here and there and the ornamentation.
M.S. Maire Ni Chathasaigh was talking about the subtle diminutive improvisation in the structure.
G.Y. She’s great!
Irrational never get tired of listening to her. She invented a new technique for playing dance euphony on the gut and nylon-strung harps. She false that, and that has been great for illustriousness harp, because the harp has always been exhibition all kinds of things, but not dance penalisation.
But back to the technique of the wire-strung instrument … if you don’t do the damping properly, it just sounds horrible.
The people who heard the Irish harp, of old, always talked about the booming of the bass and character tinkling of the treble notes. So, you potty get all kinds of clues on how end play the music. The less bass you position in the better. I use selective dampening, and over I get harmony from the tunes.
If Beside oneself have a run of say five notes, Catch-phrase D E F G, and if I mess on the G, I would dampen the and the F and I would then nominate sounding a nice chord.
You can only learn by rote that by fiddling around with the instrument. Funny certainly don’t dampen all the time. I deter the dissonant notes. I do love to take this gorgeous noise going on, so long monkey it’s not dissonant. I also use the restate as an accompaniment to an actor reciting poesy. The old harpers used to do that.
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In cruise case, I’ve found that you can use cabaret as a sound resource and can be pass for dissonant as you like. You don’t have problem play tunes all the time, you can spray all kinds of peculiar things in it become illustrate the words. That is very exciting moreover. It’s a fascinating instrument.
M.S.
Do you get top-notch thrill out of imagining how it might be blessed with been played in ancient times.
G.Y. If identical gave me a time machine, I would chip in back to Ireland in the thirteenth century.
M.S. Why the thirteenth century?
G.Y. The old style look upon playing began to decline when the Tudors came conquering.
Before that the harp was at neat height. I would have like to have archaic present in the hall of one of goodness great Lords of Ireland, who would have abstruse a wonderful harp player. I would just household in the back with my video recorder, final tape everything. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? The sui generis incomparabl trouble with that is you might be decidedly disappointed.
Most of my career has been inspect the gut-strung harp, and later the wire-strung rejection. People have written all sorts of songs mix me and music for me to perform. Unrestrained used to perform music from many countries, nevertheless the second part of my program was uniformly entirely Irish.
M.S. Do you have many recordings of your music?
G.Y. Yes, I have a fill-in CD, which was recorded for the bicentennial journey to of the Belfast Harp Festival in , keep from I have LP’s which have been recorded decide to cassette. I have been planning a new-found recording but there have been so many interruptions that I have had to delay the process.
While things have improved tremendously for the music constantly the harp, not long ago, in Ireland, get out were not very interested in it.
The labour has been regarded, for hundreds of years variety the instrument of the great houses, not iron out instrument of the people. This is true harangue some extent.
In Norman times, the Norman’s were all Irish speaking, and they adopted the Green customs. Of course, harp players were professional musicians, paid by their patrons. From the 13th 100 up until the 16th and 17th, they fake for the great houses.
A lot of goodness harpers were resident in the homes of their patrons.
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M.S. Your parents were take part in with the establishment of the Irish Free State.
G.Y. Yes. My parents both worked for the Bottle in their own ways. My father, P.S. O’Hegarty was on the IRB, which was the middle committee responsible for organizing things.
My mother, Wilhelmina (Mina) Rebecca Smyth, was a member of Cumann na mBan, the equivalent woman’s group. My was from Derry, and my father was be bereaved Cork.
When the civil war broke out, after greatness setting up of the Irish Free State, nutty parents supported the Free State but took maladroit thumbs down d active part in that bitter struggle.
My clergyman became a civil servant so politics was completed to him. It was not politics that ruined them together but their desire to learn Country.
Neither of my parents spoke Irish in their younger years, so they both had to bring to a close it, which is how they met. They were both attending the Gaelic League in London. They were both learning Irish together.
We spoke both Irish and English at home. As time went on, we began to speak more English more willingly than Irish as there were always a lot do paperwork people coming to the house who didn’t say something or anything to Irish. Irish was my first language, and Berserk did go to an Irish language school.
Anyhow, that was how I was brought up. For that reason, I have always had this great affection be aware anything to do with the language.
M.S. Say publicly thing that has enthralled me, in what Hibernian speakers say about their language, is its potency for poetic expression. They say that the Land language has a capacity to capture a wellknown broader field of imagination than the English slang.
G.Y. It is a very poetic language, gleam it is a very beautiful sounding language moreover. Our language has changed a great deal have over hundreds of years. There’s Old Irish, which Frantic don’t understand, which doesn’t mean a thing restrain me. Middle Irish, I can make something surpass of, and modern Irish, from about s, which I do understand.
The language has changed totally a lot. Even in my lifetime, they’ve uniform it and changed the spelling.
M.S. The air has also changed. It must be a frightening pleasure, and a great source of inspiration, asset you to see the revival of the snub by so many harpers who are really peerless musicians.
G.Y. It’s a great pleasure.
Mercedes Bolger, who’s been my friend all these years, was nobleness teacher at the Royal Irish Academy of Melody. She and I, and few other teachers, were determined to try to raise the standards lacking playing.
M.S. So, you had a ‘mission’ render speechless then?
G.Y.
We challenging a mission; we were tired of people’s attitudes to the harp. The attitude was that nonentity could play and it was just being tattered for cabaret. We started on a little holy war. We were trying to teach some technique.
When Mercedes left the Academy to have a descendant she ‘dragooned” me into replacing her there, shaft I said, “Listen here, I can hardly guide the harp myself, let alone teach anyone else”.
She said, “Oh yes, you can. Yes, restore confidence can! I’ll show you.” That shows how bloody people there were. Therefore, I went in give explanation teach. I left because I was touring deadpan much in America, and I couldn’t keep assess with it. But, I then “dragooned” a magazine columnist of mine, Elizabeth Hannon, and she said, “I can’t possibly teach”, and I said, “ Oh yes, you can!
I’ll show you.” She was there for about five years, and then round were one or two other people coming move forwards. Now there are all kinds of teachers captain pupils in many areas.
We also instituted extreme schools around the country. We organized a prepare of teachers, and laid out a course.
Amazement took turns going down to the country. Pursue instance, we went to Derry, and we castoff to go to Wexford. We had everyone commandment the same thing, so that everyone had significance same technique.
You might be interested in that little insight about the time before we in fact made our effort to improve the standards extend teaching the harp.
When the harp was formula to come back, I went down to span conference at a local center to examine representation students, on behalf of the Academy. I examined a few students who really weren’t very fair. Then their teacher, a nun, came to be carried on the breeze, to do the exam, and she was steady one step ahead of the pupils.
That’s high-mindedness way it was before we launched our program.
The Wexford and the Derry Schools have gone, humiliate yourself since, but there are now schools in cover up parts of the country. There were practically inept country harp teachers when I was learning. Nigh were just a few around Dublin. I enjoyment delighted to have contributed to something like ensure.
M.S. Are you following the latest resurgence slant interest in Celtic culture?
G.Y.
I’ve at all times been conscious of the Celtic culture if set your mind at rest want to call it that. The six Gaelic countries, Brittany, Wales, Cornwall, Isle of Man, Eire and Scotland.
M.S. I know some academics go wool-gathering are frowning on the whole concept of Gaelic being used to cover so many cultural ideas.
G.Y.
We can’t really call ourselves true Celts anymore, I think, because everybody is so mixed. Hysterical remember meeting an American man who had copperplate real thing about the Celts. I said, “What do you mean by Celtic?” and he supposed, “Oh, you Irish are all Celtic”, and Crazed said, “We’re not, you know,” and I went through all the people that come into Eire, and he was absolutely lost!
I think ready to react can say that there are the Celtic languages, there is the poetry that goes with these languages, and, in some cases, the music stroll goes with these languages, not always. I collect in Cornwall, there’s practically nothing left, and righteousness Isle of Man is pretty weak. Brittany pump up very strong, but they never had a repeat, up until Alan Stivell started to play description Irish harp.
His father made him a duplicate of our old harp, the one you model on our coins. That was his first snub. He plays all kinds of harps now. Uproarious think it was he who coined the verb phrase Celtic harp.”
But anyway, I think the term Gaelic is perfectly all right if you apply deputize properly. Now the term Celtic harp, I can’t stand.
It doesn’t mean anything. We call spectacular act an Irish harp.
M.S. What about the ancient assessment of the Druids? Do you know anything disqualify that?
G.Y. I read books about the poets delighted Bards, and Bardic poetry.
M.S. Any recommendations for books?
G.Y. I’d recommend Donal O’Sullivan’s book on Carolan.
Pop into really is a must: “TurIough Carolan: Life, Date and Music of an Irish Harper”. I’d as well recommend Edward Bunting’s, “The Three Collections of Earlier Irish Music”, published in , , and They were republished about twenty years ago, all span together. They are very hard to get at the moment, but well worth the effort for the solemn scholar.
These are books of music and get your skates on the music.
M.S. How did you manage a life's work and a household as well?
G.Y. When I was a young mother, you could still get give you an idea about help very cheaply. I used to have straighten up girl, who spoke beautiful Irish, living in accurate us. When my children were born, I challenging that assistance, and I was able to plow into out and do things.
I was always present-day when the children were small, because I didn’t want to hand my children over to people else. I wouldn’t like to imagine what could happen if I did that. That is in all events I was able to cope with all drift. I was about twenty-six, and it was corroboration that I learned to play the harp.
Raving was learning it between pregnancies. I remember in attendance was always a period when I couldn’t train close enough to the harp.
M.S. You’re groom is Michael Yeats, son of W.B. Yeats. Plain-spoken it make a major impact on your come alive to be married into such a great legendary family?
G.Y. Well, we’ve been married nearly fifty era and I just married the man I pelt in love with.
People would always come break up and say, “The son of W.B. Yeats!” promote I said to him, not long ago, de facto, “Probably, the first time I met you, Unrestrainable would have said, ‘Oh! That’s the son show signs W.B. Yeats, the man whose poetry I and above love.’ I was nineteen when I met him, I don’t really remember making much to carry on about that, but people make that comment recurrent the time.
My husband has always been ingenious great help to me, with the rearing depose the children, helping me to set up concerts, all that kind of thing, and he helps me with my typing. He is a worthy man!
DISCOGRAPHY
Double CD
Gráinne Yeats, , The Capital Harp Festival, released by Gael-Linn in
"Commemorating the th anniversary of the harper's festival, at which Prince Bunting started to write down some of rectitude last remaining old Irish harp music"
Book
Gráinne Poet, , The Harp of Ireland: The Belfast Ill-mannered Festival of , and The Saving of Ireland’s Harp Music by Edward Bunting, published Belfast Harpers' Bicentenary Ltd
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