Alison Vardy
"Solo Celtic harp music is Alison's passion. Alison started playing the harp in 1985 while living in Gore, a small town in the South Island of New Zealand, noted for its annual country music festival. Struggling with such odds she persisted at her craft, earning her first gig….. with the local hearing impaired group!
Alison was able to
pursue a more Celtic flavour when she moved to Dunedin, New Zealand, and
was soon active as a musician in the New Edinburgh Folk Club (Dunedin is
Gaelic for Edinburgh and is the Celtic capital of NZ). She became a key
member of a succession of performance groups including Blarney Rose who
produced a tape and were dubbed the Irish Light Orchestra of the South
because of their proliferation of members.
In 1993 Alison built her 2nd instrument, a 36-string Paraguayan
Harp, at a harp making workshop in Australia. Immediately following was
the First Australian Harp Festival where Alison performed between the
constant re-tunings of the Paraguayan's new strings.
In
1996 Creative
New Zealand funded Alison on a professional musician development trip to
the International Folk Harp Conference in Olympia, Washington. A year
later, she produced her first solo CD, "Harping On".
In 1997 Alison did a tour of the South Island of New Zealand with
a series of dates including a gig in a large winery cave with Dunedin
soprano Anna Goode. Later that year Alison re-emigrated back to Canada
with her husband, Stephen, and her two now teenaged children.
Alison now lives in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and performs extensively as a professional musician on the Paraguayan and Celtic harps for concerts, weddings, schools, corporate, recording sessions, community and private events. Her most recent acquisition is a superb sounding 36-string NOVA lever harp made by Sandpiper Instruments (John Westling) in Oregon.
Alison has recorded three CDs.
Her first, "Harping On" (1997)
celebrated her farewell from Dunedin NZ with
Celtic tunes and Latin rhythms.
Her second CD, "Apasionada"
(2000) recorded at
Melodeon Studios
in Victoria, BC, took her on a journey through many diverse cultures
with music from around the globe.
Alison's most recent CD, "Island
Suite" (2003)
has brought her music home to Canada with an emphasis on Canadian and
West Coast themes. She counts herself lucky to have received extensive
training on the piano when she was young. She translates these skills
for teaching herself and others on the harp, as well as for arranging
and composing her own music.
Alison now works primarily as a soloist
but has been a part of duos and ensembles, and is currently collaborating with other musicians with the desire to present a duo concert series. For the last seven years Alison has presented concerts throughout British Columbia's Vancouver Island, Gulf Islands, Sunshine Coast and the Lower Mainland.
