Harpist Georgia Ruth chats to Buzz about her burgeoning career and the forthcoming release of her debut album.
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Harpist Georgia Ruth chats to Buzz about her burgeoning career and the forthcoming release of her debut album.
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You‘ ve played the harp since a very young age, what inspired you to play such a unique instrument? Well it wasn’ t really a conscious decision; I didn’ t directly choose to play the harp. When I was in primary school, everyone had to learn an instrument, and they did it down the register. Initially I tried the violin and I was really quite atrocious at it. They hadn’ t found anyone to play the harp and I remember going home to my parents and saying“ oh I’ m going to learn the harp”. They both just looked at me and kind of went“ what?” So yeah, I didn’ t mean to play the harp, it just kind of happened.
When did you feel your career as a musician was really taking off? I started writing songs quite late on. It happened when I was about 19. I had gone to Cambridge and it occurred to me that maybe I would take my harp with me. I wrote a few songs and I just demoed them in the holidays. It was about 2008 when I started writing songs and Adam Walton liked them and played them on the radio. It’ s been quite a long journey for the first album, I haven’ t felt ready to write and record an album until the last couple of years, so in a way it has kind of just started in the last two years.
Have you faced any difficulties in becoming a recognised harpist? The difficulties are that you’ re more easily pigeonholed because people have quite a narrow idea of what the harp is. They either think of the classical musicians and all the connotations of that classical style, or they think Joanna Newsom, so I found that I had more to prove than if I had just been playing the piano or guitar because of people’ s impressions of what a harpist was. But in a way that’ s been a really good thing as well, it’ s nice taking a harp to Green Man and dragging it through the mud. It’ s nice to take a classical instrument to a more unusual location.
What was the inspiration behind your forthcoming debut album, Week Of Pines? I sort of knew that I wanted it to be different from the In Luna EP. I wanted to go out of my comfort zone a bit more. I was really lucky because the band I have on the album is the three brothers from Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog. At first they just followed in whatever direction I gave, but they piped up a little bit about the arrangements they thought might suit the songs. I am quite indebted to them in a way. Really they were my biggest influence.
Week Of Pines is out on Mon 20 May. Album launch: Sat 1 June, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff. Info: www. georgiaruthmusic. co. uk
“... it’ s nice taking a harp to Green Man and dragging it through the mud”
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