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A Christmas Collection is an all-star affair, with Janet Harbison's excellent Irish Harp Orchestra featuring "All-Ireland Champions" (in the 15-18 years old category) on the harp, uilleann pipes, highland pipes, and fiddle. A prominent traditional harper herself, Harbison is well known in Celtic music circles. Her Christmas Collection is an impressive showcase of traditional holiday numbers, interspersed with ageless Irish tunes and two Harbison originals.

The album opens brilliantly with Harbison's own Bright New Morning, which lives up to its name. The instrumental is cheerful, spritely, and rich with strings and pipes; the catchy melody grabbed me immediately. The release does include some pleasing vocals, although the classic Celtic instruments provide the primary focus. The well-directed children's choir, for example, conveys a homespun sweetness. My favorite vocal, however, belongs to young Aine Hayes (11 years old), whose priceless, clear soprano on In the Bleak Midwinter melted my heart. Just beautiful! Even though harps are important players, this is no prissy floating-in-the-air ethereal affair; the music ranges from kick-up-your-heels jigs, reels, and polkas to the darkly soul-rendering uilleann pipes on Port Na Bpucai.

Many tracks were unfamiliar to me, although all are dynamic and present strong musicality. More than half are not strictly seasonal numbers at all. Still, the diversity broadens the listenability of this fine album, and anyone who favors Celtic stylings will be well pleased with A Christmas Collection.

I very much enjoyed my scenic aural tour of Ireland this morning. Thank you, Janet Harbison!

--Carol Swanson
(Reviewed in 2008)

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From the liner notes:

The Irish Harp Orchestra is a new, young concert troupe of traditional Irish musicians featuring many current All Ireland Champions. Based at the heart of Ireland's cultural capital in Limerick, the harp orchestra has a national membership comprising harpers from all over the country, along with uilleann pipes, highland (or Scottish) pipes, fiddles, flutes, whistles, concertinas, mandolins and bodhrans! The Harp Orchestra concerts are always spectacular presentations of Irish music song and dance and this Christmas Collection is no exception. We're just sorry you can't see us dancing on the CD!

The idea of the Harp Orchestra evolved from the Grammy Award winning Belfast Harp Orchestra (1992-2002) which was created by founder-director Janet Harbison to celebrate the beicentenary of the Belfast Harper's Festival, the single most important event in Ireland's cultural history.

The performers on this CD are:

Harpers: Janet Harbison (and vocals); Annalee Foster (and vocals), Eimear Coughlan (current under 12 yrs All Ireland Champion Harper, and whistle), Gerard Coughlan (and whistle), Deirdre Murphy, Fiana O Connell, Aoife O Dowd
Uillean Pipes: Ryan Murphy (current 15-18 yrs All Ireland Champion)
Highland Pipes: David Stone (current 15-18 yrs All Ireland Champion)
Fiddle: Eimear Howley (current 15-18 yrs All Ireland Champion)
Flute & Whistle: Martin Shane
Bodhran: George Holmes
Child Vocal Solo: Aine Hayes (Age 11)
Children's Choir: Shannon Ramzan, Kelly Ryan, Jordan Cooke, Aisling, Costello, Roisin Costello, Aine Hayes

The All Ireland Champions are the title holders of the annual world-wide Irish traditional music competitions hosted by Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann in which tens of thousands of young and adult people compete through county and regional heats to the national and world competitions for the pretigious title of All Ireland Champion.



From the Website:

Born in Dublin on August 1st, 1955, Janet Harbison is acknowledged as one of Ireland's most prominent traditional harpers and pioneering personalities in the Irish harp music scene. She is an authoritative resource on the history and music of the Irish harp and ethnic music.

Her discovery and enthusiasm for much of the extinct ancient harp repertoire led her into teaching and reviving the music through the oral tradition. For this activity, she has often been referred to as "Ireland's Crusading Harper" and many of today's rising professional performers and teachers are former students.

To describe Janet as an influential teacher would be to tell only half of the story. She is also a prolific composer, a talented performer, writer and producer.

She established the Harp Orchestras in order to provide her students with the opportunity to perform in public and to develop careers as professional harpers.

The Irish Harp Orchestra is a professional touring stage production featuring up to 16 harpers, up to 8 other musicians (including uilleann pipes, bagpipes, fiddle, flute, concertina, whistles and bodhran), choral and solo singers, and a team of up to 32 dancers in large scale concert presentations..

The Irish Harp Orchestra evolved from the internationally acclaimed Belfast Harp Orchestra 1992 - 2002 (winning a Grammy Award with the Chieftains 1993) and has performed in most of the world's top concert halls including New York's Carnegie Hall, Washington's Kennedy Centre, London's Royal Festival Hall, Dublin's National Concert Hall, Amsterdam's Concertgebou, Munich and Koln's Philharmonic Halls.

The Irish Harp Orchestra members are the top young professionals on their instruments - many of them current reigning All Ireland Champions - who, teamed up with some of Ireland's most experienced artists, present a winning combination of traditional and original sounds from the 'genius of Janet Harbison' who is both producer and director. All the members of the Irish Harp Orchestra were trained in the National Harp Orchestra where the members learned stage craft, team performance, concert presentation, personal development, confidence building, leadership skills, film, TV and CD recording.

Janet and the Irish Harp Orchestra Harbison

A Christmas Collection

Artist link

Track List