Part 1: Janet Harbison - Music Telling the Story of Our History — Moon Over the Trees Music and Theatre Productions

Janet with her harp in front of wisteria

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Janet Harbison is one of the most well respected celebrators of the Irish Harp and Traditional Irish Music. She has had a profound influence on the harp and trad community teaching some of the most well known harp players in the tradition like Grainne Hambly, Michael Rooney, and Laoise Kelly.

Her new solo album, “By Strangford Water” is a collection of Janet’s compositions. There is also a companion book of the compositions on this album available on Janet’s website.

We discussed the importance of keeping Traditional Irish Music alive.

“[Irish Traditional Music is] Ireland’s Classical music”
-Janet Harbison

Janet and I covered quite a bit of information in our chat so I decided to break this interview into two parts. In this episode we discuss her new album, her development of courses to train teachers of traditional Irish music, Northern Ireland during Brexit and COVID, the history of the Belfast harp Orchestra, touring with The Chieftains as well has her involvement in the peace process in Northern Ireland.

“I understood that there could be more of a purpose to music than pure entertainment. There’s always the “pure” entertainment element in there and the beauty of the music and the importance and depth and profundity and emotional content of the music as well as the lively, cheeky, and impudent, and fun, and funky side as well of the dance music. We knew how to really enjoy ourselves, but we knew how to take the sadness out of us, too with the depth of the slow airs, for instance. Which is a massively profound area in our repertoire. But, in Northern Ireland I understood the value it could have. Not just in bringing a different story of Northern Ireland, the mix of the Scottish and what we call the Ulster Scots, the Scottish/British element of the community in Northern Ireland and the Irish/Nationalist. “
-Janet Harbison

In Part 2 of this interview we get into her relationship with Camac harps and the story behind the making of the Camac “Janet” harp, how to interpret slow airs on the harp, and other interesting topics.