NEWPORT — Celtic music guitar and harp duo Keith Murphy and Maeve Gilchrist will perform at 7 p.m. Friday, May 4 at the Library Arts Center Gallery in Newport. Tickets cost $16 in advance and $20 at the door. Doors open shortly after 6:30 p.m., and seating is open. For more information and tickets, visit www.libraryartscenter.org/threebridges or call (603) 863-3040.
The concert is the second installment of the center’s “Three Bridges Traditional Music Series” that runs throughout 2018. The series is a celebration of traditional music, and is a refreshing sequel to the center’s successful concert season last year.
The series is coordinated by musician Eric McDonald, and features concerts on the arts center’s stage each month from April to September, with exceptional traditional musicians from throughout New England and beyond. McDonald joined fiddler Ryan McKasson and bagpiper Jeremiah McLane to present the first concert in the series in early April, and will return with the trio Cantrip for the final concert in the series in September.
Described by one critic as “a phenomenal harp player who can make her instrument ring with unparalleled purity,” Maeve Gilchrist has taken the Celtic harp to new levels of performance. Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, and currently based in Brooklyn, New York, Gilchrist’s innovative approach to her instrument stretches its harmonic limits and improvisational possibilities. She has released five albums to date, and was the first lever harpist to join the faculty of the iconic Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she taught for five years before switching to a visiting roots department artist.
A native of Newfoundland, Keith Murphy’s traditional song repertoire is based in Eastern Canada and Quebec as well as his current home, Vermont. His direct and intimate style of traditional singing in English and French infuses old ballads and songs with a powerful immediacy while his rhythmic and percussive finger style of guitar playing brings new shape and color to his songs. His 2005 album, “Bound for Canaan,” showcased his refined sense of balance between innovation and tradition while his most recent CD, “Suffer No Loss,” (2014) is a beautifully spare recording in the style of early classic recordings of the traditional English and Celtic music revival.
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