Maeve Gilchrist

Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, and currently based in Brooklyn, N.Y., Maeve‘s innovative approach to her instrument stretches its harmonic limits and improvisational possibilities. She is as at home as a soloist with an internationally renowned orchestra as she is playing with a traditional Irish folk group or using electronic augmentation in a more contemporary, improvisatory setting.

Maeve tours internationally as a bandleader and composer as well as belonging to a number of innovative collaborations, including the prestigious Silkroad Ensemble, Arooj Aftab’s Vulture Prince Ensemble,progressive folk-quartet DuoDuo and a more electronics based project with Nashville— based bassist Viktor Krauss. She has appeared at such major music events as Celtic Connections in Glasgow, Tanglewood Jazz Festival, the World Harp Congress in Amsterdam and the historic opening of the Scottish Parliament. She has played with such luminaries as Yo-Yo Ma, Esperanza Spalding, Tony Trishka, Ambrose Akinmusire and Darol Anger.
 
Maeve has released five albums to date, including “The Harpweaver,” which was hailed by the Irish times in its five-star review as “Buoyant, sprightly and utterly beguiling… a snapshot of a musician at the top of her game." She was the first lever harpist to be employed as an instructor by her alma mater, Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she taught for five years before switching to being a visiting artist in 2018. She has written several instructional books and is an in-demand composer and arranger. Maeve is the co-artistic director of the new Rockport Celtic Roots and Branches Festival and the co-music director of WGBH’s Christmas Celtic Sojourn.