Layale Chaker and Maeve Gilchrist present an Up Close musical conversation

Composer, violinist and vocalist Layale Chaker invites audiences into her world ahead of her Up Close performance with acclaimed harpist Maeve Gilchrist on Friday, Jan. 16. In this video interview, Chaker reflects on the artistic journey that has shaped her work—from her Lebanese heritage to her life as a New York–based artist—and on the music that lives between cultures, traditions and forms.

Chaker’s sound moves fluidly across boundaries, weaving together Arabic musical traditions, jazz, improvisation and contemporary classical language. Her practice is rooted in the idea of music as both sanctuary and meeting place: a space where ancestral memory and present-day expression exist side by side. That ethos comes to life in this intimate harp-and-violin duet, making its formal premiere in Madison.

Together, Chaker and Gilchrist draw from the musical vocabularies of their respective lineages—Levantine and Celtic—imagining the threads that quietly stitch together inherited worlds. Their collaboration, "Smoke Veins," traces melodic and rhythmic contours shaped by centuries of oral tradition: the echoes of old stories, mythologies and superstitions carried across time and distance. Rather than reimagining the past, the work explores a shared present—one that flows through us unseen and asks listeners to step into a newly formed musical landscape rooted in memory but written for today.

Raised in Lebanon at the crossroads of multiple musical streams, Chaker has developed a “beguiling” sound universe, praised by NPR for its “bright and beautiful strands” and “wine-dark swirls.” A Jerome Hill Fellow and recipient of the Opera America Discovery Award, her recent premieres include "Qarar/Jawab" at the Venice Biennale, "Dawning" with the New York Philharmonic and her debut chamber opera "Ruinous Gods" at the Spoleto Festival. She also recently released a double portrait album featuring both her classical compositions and her chamber jazz quintet, Sarafand.

Returning to Overture and the Up Close series, Edinburgh-born harpist and composer Maeve Gilchrist is widely recognized as a pioneering voice on the Celtic harp, expanding the instrument’s possibilities across folk, classical and experimental spaces. Now based in Kingston, NY, she tours internationally and performs with ensembles including Silkroad and Arooj Aftab’s Grammy-winning Vulture Prince project. Her compositions—ranging from concertos to chamber works—have been performed by leading orchestras and ensembles worldwide. Gilchrist’s most recent album, "The Harpweaver," earned international acclaim for its vitality and depth, offering a fitting counterpart to this richly layered collaboration.

Together, Chaker and Gilchrist offer an Up Close experience that is deeply personal, quietly expansive and rooted in the shared language of music.

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