Laoise Kelly from Westport, now living on Achill Island, Co. Mayo, is one of Ireland’s leading traditional harpers. She has pioneered a new style of driving instrument harp playing, combining the techniques of fingerpads in the bass, and fingernails in the melody, on a thirty-four gut strung Paddy Cafferky harp.

Laoise has performed and recorded nationally and internationally with the foremost artists in Irish music from The Chieftains to Kate Bush, and has recorded three critically acclaimed solo albums.

She is Director of the Achill International Harp Festival, and in 2020 was awarded the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Musician of the year.

Úna Ní Fhlannagáin is an award-winning harper-composer and singer from Co. Galway, Ireland. An instrumentalist of verve and imagination, she is rooted in diverse musical influences such as the dance music tradition of North Clare, the sean-nós singing style of Maigh Seola, the American post-minimalists and free jazz. She has performed her wildly energetic jigs and reels, delicate hornpipes and emotive slow airs throughout Ireland, Europe, North America and the Middle East, winning multiple prizes at the All-Ireland Fleadh, Keadue International Harp Festival, Oireachtas, O’Carolan Harp Festival, and Granard Harp Festival along the way. While studying for a first-class honours university degree, she branched into jazz and contemporary music, studying and performing with Anthony Braxton, the legendary free jazz musician and composer. Since then she’s won a commission from the World Harp Congress, had one of her pieces published by Cairde na Cruite, and performed her own compositions in Ireland, Croatia, Canada and the U.S., and performed with Grammy Award winner Bobby McFerrin. Úna strives to mine the richness of her native tradition, explore the potential of her instrument, and respectfully engage with other genres… in short, to play music which makes you feel good.

Dianne Marshall was born in Portlaoise, Co Laois, in 1978. She spent many years at the Royal Irish Academy of music, studying both Harp and Piano. Dianne then won a music scholarship at Oakham School in Rutland, England where she studied for a number of years before being accepted into the London Royal Academy of Music, which she entered as a student under the tutorship of Professor Daphne Boden.

Since returning to Ireland Dianne has worked as a freelance musician playing both Irish Harp and Concert Harp. Dianne regularly works with the Ulster Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra and RTÉ. Concert Orchestra. As well as the three main professional Orchestras in Ireland Dianne has also worked with many other companies including the Wexford Opera festival and European Opera Company for a number of years.
Dianne has also given solo recitals as well as playing duets and Chamber music with a range of different musicians throughout Ireland.

Claire is one of Ireland’s foremost musicians, playing both Classical Concert and Irish Traditional Harp. With an early passion for harp, she began to learn at the age of eight in The Royal Irish Academy of music Dublin and later in the Conservatoire National De Music Reims, France. She was the youngest performer at the Ninth World Harp Congress in Dublin in 2005 and was appointed principle harpist with The National Youth Orchestra in 2007.

Mary Louise O’Donnell is a harpist and musicologist who has performed extensively throughout Ireland, Europe, Africa and Asia as a soloist and with various ensembles. She was awarded a doctorate by the University of Limerick in 2009 and, since then, has published widely on topics relating to Irish cultural history, semiotics and performance studies. Her first book, Ireland’s Harp: The Shaping of Irish Identity c. 1770-1880, was published in 2014 by UCD Press. Mary Louise has received many awards and grants to further her research, including an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship, Fulbright Scholarship, and Centre Culturel Irlandais Fellowship. Her current research focuses on the diverse ways in which the Irish harp was used to construct identity among Irish emigrants to North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In 2019, Mary Louise was appointed Musician-in-Residence with Fingal County Council and, in 2020, she and her sister Teresa released an album entitled Heavenly Harps, Heavenly Cloths: Contemporary Music for the Irish Harp by Brian Boydell.

Teresa O’Donnell has worked as a freelance pedal and Irish harpist throughout Ireland, Europe, North America, Africa and Asia. She began her harp studies with the late Sr. Eugene McCabe at Mount Sackville School, Dublin.

Teresa lectured in music at St. Patrick’s College, DCU and was awarded a Foras Feasa fellowship to research a PhD which she completed in 2021. She has performed with the Irish Chamber Orchestra and has been a musician in residence with Fingal County Council since 2019. Teresa has appeared on several TV networks including, RTÉ, TG4, BBC, CNN and NHK (Japan). In collaboration with her sister, Mary Louise, they have released an album of music for the Irish harp by Brian Boydell, entitled, Heavenly Harps, Heavenly Cloths.

Leading lever harpist of her generation, Dr Anne-Marie O’Farrell from Dublin has performed all over the world as a solo artist, accompanist and in ensembles, and is regularly featured in broadcasts.

On lever harp, she is particularly recognized for her expansion of repertoire and levering techniques, as a result of which the world’s leading harpmakers Salvi Harps redesigned their lever harps to become concert instruments.
She has performed with numerous orchestras, including the Irish Baroque Orchestra, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the Irish Memory Orchestra, and the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra with whom she premiered Ryan Molloy’s Concerto for lever harp, Gealán.

A prolific recording artist, she has released several CDs, including Just So Bach, Harping Bach to Carolan, The Jig’s Up, My Lagan Love, and Embrace. New Directions for Irish Harp; Double Strung and Duopoly with Cormac De Barra; and Harp to Harp with harmonica player Brendan Power. She is frequently invited to give recitals, workshops and masterclasses at international conferences and festivals around the world, in addition to performance at several World Harp Congresses.

Dedicated to the development of the Irish harp, she has published critical editions of Bach’s cello, keyboard and lute repertoire. She has recently completed several large-scale commissions showcasinging the harp, including an Irish harp concerto, and a five-movement work for large harp ensemble.

Máire is “the doyenne of Irish harp players” (Scotland on Sunday) and 2001 recipient of Irish music’s most prestigious Award, Gradam Ceoil TG4 – Traditional Musician of the Year – “for the excellence and pioneering force of her music, the remarkable growth she has brought to the music of the harp in Ireland and for the positive influence she has had on the young generation of harpers.” A multiple All-Ireland and Pan-Celtic winner, she developed profoundly influential techniques for harp performance of traditional Irish music, heard on her pioneering New-Strung Harp (1985), her recent trio album with The Casey Sisters and seven duo and two quartet recordings with guitarist Chris Newman – with whom she tours worldwide. A TV programme in TG4’s ‘Sé mo Laoch series about Máire and her sister Nollaig was recently broadcast.