Product Description In 1983, Patrick Ball released the first record in his Celtic Harp series. Now, ten years and five releases later, he has completed his most personal work to date. Fiona is a collection of traditional songs that includes some of the most beautiful and haunting tunes of the Celtic world - and is named after Patrick Ball's new daughter, Fiona. For many years, the Celtic harp, with its unique resonance and clear, bell-like sound was an important part of Celtic life, especially in Ireland and in France's Celtic province, Brittany. The few harps which survived into the 20th century, did so as museum pieces, and their incredibly large and varied repertoire began to sink into obscurity, too. Naturally, as musicians and listeners have rediscovered the beauty of these instruments, the old songs and laments have been rediscovered as well. On Fiona, Ball includes two of Ireland's most enduring and memorable folk songs: She Moved Through the Fair, an oft recorded classic which can now finally be heard in its original form, and Brian Boru's March, an ancient tune marking the brief unification of Ireland in the 11th century. Traditional songs from Scotland and Brittany also appear, along with a work by Turlough O'Carolan, whose popular music has been a feature of each of Patrick Ball's six recordings for Celestial Harmonies/Fortuna. Ball's wire-strung harp is the focus of this recording, but the traditional Irish pipes, whistles, and fiddle provide an occasional complement on several pieces. About the Artist to indicate a paragraph break to indicate a line break to boldface a word or phrase to indicate italics. Patrick Ball was born and raised in California and gave little thought to such things as where his ancestors came from. He went to school and supposed, when he thought about it at all, that he would one day be a lawyer, like his father. But he studied music from time to time and over the years developed a nodding acquaintance with the piano and the guitar. At university he continued his flirtatious relationship with music by playing the tin whistle, principally to annoy his roommate. But at this time he found that he was irresistibly drawn to words, to the music of words, to writers who made words sing, to writers from Ireland. Then, when he began to study history to fulfill his academic requirements, he was not surprised to find that it was the lyrical, turbulent history of Ireland that engaged him. So much so, in fact, that when his father died all his thoughts of law school died with him. He enrolled in graduate school and soon made his way to Ireland. There he fell in love with the eloquence and fire of the Irish oral tradition. There he fell in love with the Celtic harp. And there a few pieces of his life fell into place. For he came to know that marvelous unity of Irish words, music and history that would become his passion and, eventually, his livelihood. Patrick returned to California, was awarded a Master's Degree in History by Dominican College, and soon discovered that jobs in the field of Irish scholarship were not to be had for love nor money. So after laboring in various unrewarding lines of work he set off hitchhiking around the country and finally fetched up at Penland School of Crafts in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where he lived for two years and worked as a groundsman. There he encountered a branch of that living oral tradition that had captivated him in Ireland. And there for him, among the Appalachian storytellers, his love of the spoken word was rekindled. He returned to Ireland and listened, then made his way back to California, determined to put his scholarship, his love of words and his neglected musicianship to some use, to carve out for himself an occupation from the things that he loved. He sought out a maker of the rare wire-strung Celtic harp and taught himself to play. He then gathered the stories he had heard and the history he had learned and blended them with thASIN: B0000007X6VSKU: GGV.B0000007X6.LNCondition: Like NewAuthor/Artist:BALL,PATRICKBinding: Audio CD
