01/02/2012
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
And for a New Years Treat for your ears visit **** http://soundcloud.com/rachel-hair **** for a sneak preview of one of the tracks from the Rachel Hair Trio's new album.
'No More Wings' is finished and due for official release on the 1st of April BUT it will be available here on the website a week before.
06/11/2011
MG Alba Scots Trad Awards Nomination
The Rachel Hair Trio are thrilled to announce that they have been nominated in the "Scottish Folk Band of the Year" category at the 2011 MG Alba Scots Trad Awards. This was a complete surprise and they are honoured to be nominated alongside some fantastic acts.
TO VOTE for the Rachel Hair Trio please click HERE. They'd really appreciate it if you could take the time to do so and please tell other too.
06/10/2011
New album and New Review
Well the Rachel Hair Trio are now home from a fab and successful tour of Western Norway and are getting stuck into recording the new album!
Week 1 in the studio is nearly complete with another week to go. Some special guests have been confirmed for it so its all very exciting :)
It will be released in early 2012 so keep checking back here and on the Facebook fan pages for more announcements regarding it.
They also got a great live review for their performance at the Edinburgh Folk Club. Check it out on the Review page now.
20/09/2011
The Rachel Hair Trio are in the middle of a 10day tour amongst the beautiful Fjords in Western Norway. Playing a mixture of public and school concerts they're having a great time! Photos will be up soon!
20/09/2011
The Rachel Hair Trio are in the middle of a 10day tour amongst the beautiful Fjords in Western Norway. Playing a mixture of public and school concerts they're having a great time! Photos will be up soon!
30/07/2011
Festival Interceltique, Lorient, Brittany, France...
Rachel is about to head of to perform at one of the worlds biggest Celtic Music Festivals! Appearing with her trio, as a soloist, and with Breton harpist Tristan le Govic, Rachel will be kept busy at this festival.
Perfromances include:
Saturday 6th August: Rachel Hair Trio, "Folk Night no. 8", Palais de Congres, 21.30hrs
Tuesday 9th August: Rachel Hair Solo, "Music Sacree", Eglise Saint Louis, 21.30hrs
Saturday 13th August: Rachel judging "Trophee des Harpes", Palais de Congres, 15.00hrs
Saturday 13th August: Rachel solo and duo with Tristan le Govic alongside Robin Huw Bowen, "Grande Soiree de la Harpe Celtique", Palais de Congres, 21.30hrs
04/05/2011
The Rachel Hair Trio have booked the studio to record the next album! It may not be happening until October but work is already underway preparing new material for the yet-to-be-named new disc.
They've a few outings before the recording where they'll be previewing new material including The Eastgate Theatre (Peebles) in June, Lorient Festival (Britanny) in August and a tour of Norway in September.
25/02/2011
Listen again to Rachels music and money interview on the BBC Music Cafe with Fergus Muirhead and Bruce Macgregor via the iPlayer... HERE
Rachel talked about her new blog which she is writing for finance guru/BBC money journalist Fergus Muirhead on his website "Money Sucks". If you fancy learning a bit about how musicians deal with (or don't deal with!) money check out her blog which she will be writing fortnightly. Money experts will be advising Rachel on any issues she's had...hopefully she'll learn and you will too!
check it out... HERE
15/12/2010
Check out the gallery for some new videos from one of the concerts on the Rachel Hair Trios European tour.
02/11/2010
Check out photos from the Rachel Hair Trio's tour of Europe on the gallery page...lots of laughs were had!
There are a few gigs coming up this month... Rachel and Jenn are off to Wales and the trio are playing at Montrose Folk Club. Would be great to see some friendly faces at these gigs so please spread the word.
01/10/2010
The Rachel Hair Trio are on tour in Austria (and surrounding countries) right now and having a great time! Check out the gigs page for where you can see them.
'The Lucky Smile' received a rave review from Songlines magazine. Have a gander at it on the reviews page.
03/09/2010
The Rachel Hair Trio are rehearsing hard for their upcoming tour of Austria/Slovenia/Czech Republic/Switzerland/Italy as part of "The Scottish Folk Festival". With 23 gigs in 24 days its gonna be a mammoth tour, but from what we've been told by friends who've done the tour previously, its a VERY fun tour to be on!
Check out where they're playing on the gigs page.
28/06/2010
Congratulations to Rachel's 3 pupils at St James the Great branch of Comhaltas in Glasgow! Marie, Hannah and Gemma received 1st, 2nd and 1st places respectively in the harp competitions at the 'All Britain' Fleadh at the weekend. This means they all progress to compete at the harp competition at the 'All Ireland', world Irish music competition this August. Congratulations too to Rachel's pupils Blair and Kristina who received 1st and 2nd place at the Glasgow Mod, Gaelic harp competitions.
You've made your teacher proud girls!
If you would like to get taught by Rachel, she'll be teaching a one-off workshop on the Isle of Man on Thursday the 15th July on the Isle of Man. It's part of the Yn Chruinnaght festival and Welsh/Irish harpist Harriet Earis will also be teaching. More info can be found on the 'gigs' page.
10/05/2010
**NEW HARP MUSIC BOOK ON SALE NOW**
Rachel is pleased to announce the publication of her harp music book 'Mostly Scottish Harp : Scottish, Irish, Manx & Original tunes arranged for Celtic Harp'.
Featuring 17 tunes from lower-intermediate to advanced level, the book is a mixture of traditional tunes and Rachel's own compositions, many of which have featured on her albums. Arranged in Rachel's unique style, each tune has both right and left hand, and fingering where required.
A welcome addition to any harpers repertoire 'Mostly Scottish Harp' can be purchased from the shop page on this website.
14/04/2010
What a fantastic time the last 7 days have been. The trio had a great time over in Austurias with packed out gigs. We met some lovely people, ate some fab food, enjoyed the sunshine and of course sampled the traditional cidre!
Rachel the returned home and went straight to the Edinburgh International Harp Festival where she taught a Scottish harp class to students from Scotland, England and Sweden. Great fun.
The Scottish tour kicks of tomorrow night in Gairloch so it would be great to see you at some of the gigs so check out if the trio are playing near you on the gigs page.
Just to let you know we've had some problems with Rachels "Mostly Scottish Harp" book and we've had to send the copies back to the printers for a reprint after an issue regarding quality control. Hopefully it will be back with us soon and then we'll be selling it here on the website.
cheers :)
30/03/2010
Well, summer is officially finally here. Although if you were to look out any window in Glasgow right now you'd see a raging gale and snowy blizzards! Hopefully the weather will calm down though as Rachel and her trio have lots of gigs coming up in the coming month including a visit to Austurias, Northern Spain and a wee Scottish tour.
Coming very soon is the eagerly awaited (its been in progress for the past 10 months now!) "Mostly Scottish Harp: Scottish, Irish, Manx & Original tunes arranged for Celtic Harp"... Rachel's first harp music book. It will be available to buy from the shop on this website from Monday the 12th April, but if you're attending the Edinburgh International Harp Festival you'll be able to get it there a bit earlier, on the weekend of the 10th/11th April.
05/02/2010
Well Celtic Connections has finished and what a great festival it was. Rachel was a special guest of Manx group 'King Chiaullee' at the Old Fruitmarket and had lots of fun! Check out photos from the gig in the gallery, and check out the great review from 'Oak and Thorn' who were are the gig.
The festival also saw Rachel and her trio perform 2 special sellout education concerts in the main auditorium of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall This saw nearly 5,000 schoolchildren dancing around and enjoying their music!
Some dates for 2010 are starting to appear on the gigs page. Rachel performs this sunday with Gaelic singer Joy Dunlop and over the next couple of months will see her trio touring Scotland and performing in Northern Spain. New gigs are coming in all the time so keep checking back for ones in your area.
06/01/2010
Happy New Year!
January is a busy month for Rachel with several gigs and workshops. This coming Friday (8th Jan) will see Rachel joining fellow special guests Jamie Smith, Malcolm Stitt and Greg Joughin to perform with Manx supergroup 'King Chiaullee' at the Centenary Centre on the Isle of Man, as a preview to the same concert taking place at the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow on Wed 20th Jan.
Rachel is proud to be part of Celtic Connections Education program which will twice see her trio perform in front of several thousand children at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. She'll also be teaching harp as part of the 'come and try' Celtic Connections outreach series in schools around Glasgow.
06/11/2009
Rachel and her trio are heading to Denmark next week for a wee 5-day tour so check out the gigs page to see where exactly in the country they'll be playing.
Its been a few years since Rachel has performed there so she can't wait to get back there, have some hopefully great gigs and catch up with old friends. Joining Rachel as part of her trio will be Jenn Butterworth (guitar and vocals) and James Lindsay (double bass).
13/09/2009
Rachel is taking part in a very special event in a few weeks time "Tillidh Mi Dhachaidh - The Ullapool Homecoming", in the Highland village where she grew up....Ullapool.
Celebrating the wealth of talent from the Creative Arts that has spawned from the area the 26th September to 16th October will see concerts, exhibitions, school and community workshops in Scotlands year of Homecoming.
Rachel will be joining other local musicians including James Graham, Mairearad Green, Michael Bryan, Andi Neate, Stuart Hossack and others to perform at special concerts on Friday the 2nd and Saturday 3rd October.
Find out more at www.ullapoolhomecoming.com