Mel Mercier to premiere innovative harp commission at O’Carolan Festival

Internationally acclaimed composer and percussionist Mel Mercier brought a bold new interpretation of Irish harp music to this year’s O’Carolan Harp Festival and Summer School in Keadue on Friday night with his newly commissioned work that blends traditional Irish music, classical instrumentation and world music influences.

The Tony Award-nominated, multi-award-winning musician has spent decades pushing musical boundaries. He collaborated with celebrated pianist and composer Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin for 40 years and, alongside his father, Peadar Mercier of The Chieftains, performed with avant-garde composer John Cage and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company during the 1980s.

Now, Mercier is unveiling Sonóir, a new composition commissioned by Harp Ireland that will receive just its second public performance at the festival.

“It isn’t really a piece about O’Carolan,” Mercier explains. “Harp Ireland invited me to compose something fresh and something new.”

Rather than writing a historical tribute, Mercier says he was given the freedom to create an original work that would challenge both musicians and audiences.

“They were interested in me writing a piece for two harps, with a bassoon, a viola da gamba and some percussion,” he says. “It’s a rather unusual combination of instruments. It might even be a unique combination, certainly within Irish traditional music.”

The unusual line-up, he says, was designed to bring different musical worlds together.

“It brings together two different music cultures. One is the traditional music culture, especially through the harp, and then the classical music because the musicians playing the bassoon and the viola da gamba are both classically trained. Those instruments aren’t associated at all with traditional Irish music, so in that sense it’s a meeting of two different traditions – the Irish and the European.”

Mercier says his musical influences stretch well beyond Ireland.

“For the last 30 years or more I’ve been studying and playing music from Indonesia, West Africa and India. Because I’m a musician, I’m very interested in complex, sophisticated rhythms.”

For Mercier, the project also reflects a lifelong fascination with the sound of the harp and bodhrán together.

“I’ve been playing bodhrán for a long, long time. I learned from my father, Peadar Mercier, who played with The Chieftains.

“My father and Derrick Bell were good pals. I always loved the sound of the bodhrán and the harp together. I just loved that sound.”

Those global influences have also shaped Sonóir, introducing rhythmic ideas rarely heard in Irish traditional music.

“I’ve always been interested in complex, sophisticated rhythms,” he says.

“Some of the rhythms in the piece are traditional, but some of them aren’t.”

He describes Sonóir as existing somewhere between musical worlds.

“It’s definitely on the edge of traditional music, but recognisably traditional in lots of ways.”

The performance will feature Mercier alongside members of the ensemble Sonóir, including harpist Niamh O’Brien, clarinettist Alana Thorne and Malachy Robinson of the Irish Chamber Orchestra, who will perform on the much older viola da gamba instead of his usual double bass.

Each musician will also perform individually during the concert before the evening concludes with Sonóir.

“It’s only the second time that we’ve performed it,” Mercier says.

Mercier is also looking forward to experiencing the O’Carolan Harp Festival for the first time.

“I haven’t been to the festival before, so I’m really looking forward to that community,” he says.

“I’m also looking forward to hearing some of the other musicians there.”

With an ensemble unlike anything usually heard in Irish traditional music, Sonóir promises to offer audiences a fresh perspective on the Irish harp while honouring the spirit of innovation that has kept the tradition alive for generations.