Thorn Tree

Grinne Hambly comes from County Mayo in the west of Ireland. She started to play Irish music on the tin whistle at an early age, before moving on to the concertina and later the harp. She lived in Belfast for six years, where she completed a Masters Degree in Musicology, awarded by the Queen's University. Her main research topic was folk music collections and the harp in 18th-century Ireland. Since touring extensively throughout the United States for the past eight years, Grinne Hambly has not only garnered an ever-growing following of devoted harp enthusiasts but has managed to cross over and capture the Irish music fan with the taste for the fast, driving reels and jigs of traditional music. She has broken the genteel parlor image and elevated the stature of the harp right up there with the fiddles and pipes in the realm of dynamic dance music. Add to that the unsurpassed expressive quality the harp has in her hands in the rendition of age-old airs and laments and you have the masterful performance of an experienced and renowned player. With two critically acclaimed CDs of solo harp, she has just released her third album and recorded with numerous other artists. She has also published two books of her arrangements. She tours most of the year and has appeared at most of the major harp and Irish music festivals in the U.S. and Europe. Grinne Hambly is an internationally recognized performer on the Irish harp....widely acclaimed and.....in the front-line of performers in her genre world-wide. Dr. Mcheal Silleabhin, Irish World Music Centre.