Acacia Lyra is not your average harp and voice duo. Janine Dudding and Susan Sweeney Hermon sing in English, French, Spanish and Gaelic, accompanying themselves on Celtic harps and guitars. Their programme is a colourful journey of traditional and contemporary tunes, including their own material, from the Scottish highlands to the Peruvian Altiplano.
Janine and Susan began performing as a duo in 2006. Each has a wealth of songs from different sources, and their musical collaboration has resulted in new compositions and fresh arrangements for harp, guitar and voice, and two CDs, Harmonic Curves (2007), and Aqsarniit – Northern Lights (2010). These two CDs were launched to sold out audiences at the National Arts Centre Fourth Stage. A third CD, Silver Sun, was released in November 2011.
They also play around the region with other musicians, and in fact Susan was one of the stalwarts who showed up to create a spontaneous Ceilidh a few months ago when our planned musician was called to Ireland for a bereavement. Within the folk community of Ottawa Acacia Lyra have a great reputation for their musicality and the wonderful sounds they create. Don’t miss this rare chance to hear them again/
Visit their webpage at http://acacialyra.com/index.htm and have a listen to some of the wonderful sounds they create, then make sure you come in on Friday to see them play live at Gaia Java! Big thanks to Ottawa folk guru Sjef Frenken for introducing me to the music of Janine and Susan, as well as several other great folk artists who will be playing at the shop this month.
Acacia Lyra plays Gaia Java on Friday, May 22 at 7:00pm.