Siobhan Armstrong
Harp
Siobhán Armstrong is a performer, artistic director, speaker, educator and mentor, and plays pre-1800 repertory on reconstructions of medieval to baroque harps. Siobhán has performed with singers and instrumentalists (European art music and vernacular Irish music), period-instrument ensembles, orchestras and opera companies throughout Europe including Les Arts Florissants, English Baroque Soloists, The Academy of Ancient Music, Irish Baroque Orchestra, The Illyria Consort, and Early Opera Company. As founding director of The Historical Harp Society of Ireland, she continues to spearhead the international rediscovery of Ireland's iconic ancient harp, strung in brass wires.
In 2014, Siobhán located a lost historic Irish harp and, in 2016, she commissioned the first ever 3D-laser scan of a musical instrument – an 18th-century Irish harp – at The National Museum of Ireland. Her recent PhD (Middlesex University, London) has unlocked new information about early-Irish-harp performance practice, and the debut CD of her ensemble, The Irish Consort – Music, Ireland and the Sixteenth Century – was an Irish Times international classical-music recordings top-five pick of 2021.
Sharing her wealth of performance experience and research discoveries is now at the heart of Siobhán Armstrong's artistic, academic, and educational work. She particularly enjoys coaching harpists (beginners to professionals), other instrumentalists and singers, in both early Gaelic and medieval to baroque European music. Siobhán is an Occasional Lecturer at the School of Music, University College Dublin, and has most recently also been invited to lead workshops at The Royal Irish Academy of Music, and The Royal College of Music, London.
When she is not travelling, Siobhán divides her time between Kilkenny and London.
Siobhán would like to acknowledge The Arts Council of Ireland, Music Network and the Dept of Culture, Heritage and Gaeltacht for their kind support for her work.
