“One of the leading contemporary performers on the instrument”
– The Scotsman

“One of the finest harpists in the world…all three Scottish harps centre stage and giving the acoustic lift that heightens the senses gloriously”
– Liverpool Sound and Vision

“The Road to Kennacraig is a compelling and well-wrought collection”
– The Living Tradition

Karen Marshalsay is a master of traditional Scottish harp music. One of the very few musicians who specialise on all three Scottish harps – both gut- and wire-strung and the baroque bray harp with its buzzing sitar-like tone – Karen has appeared throughout the UK, Europe, America and Australia.

Karen’s music is varied, with a strong foundation in her own Scottish traditions, especially pibroch, but also influenced by international collaborations with African, Indian and Paraguayan musicians participating in multi-cultural projects including Yatra projects including Yatra, which premiered at the Edinburgh Mela in 2008, and appearing at Beethoven 2020 in Bonn. She is particularly interested in exploring narrative melody and traditional-style phrasing with ensembles and string orchestras, and taking harp, an ancient instrument, into contemporary soundscapes.

A particular interest in pipe music has led to Karen working with piping master and Gaelic song authority Allan MacDonald in his acclaimed pibroch concerts, including the Edinburgh International Festival’s From Battle Lines to Bar Lines series (2004), and for the National Piping Centre’s 2013 Ceòl na Piòba concert. In 2018 Karen was honoured as an invited participant in Féile na Laoch, which is held every seven years in memory of composer-arranger Seán Ó Riada in Cúil Aodha, Ireland.

Karen’s own compositions include commissions for Celtic Connections’ New Voices series. She was Composer in Residence with Harps North West in 2016 and is one of the first composers to be inducted into the New Traditional School Collection curated by Edinburgh University. Karen has also orchestrated her music for the Russian String Orchestra, with whom she appeared as featured soloist during Edinburgh Festival in 2018 and 2019. In 2022 she received a Covid-19 Composer Award from Sound and Music. Her solo harp pieces feature in Trinity, ABRSM and RCS exam syllabuses, and are published along with her arrangements of traditional tunes in her own collections. Karen’s solo album of original and traditional music, The Road to Kennacraig, was produced by the award-winning record producer and song collector Robin Morton at Temple Studios and released in 2019.

In addition to solo concerts, Karen currently performs with the long-established Scottish traditional music band The Whistlebinkies and with the legendary Irish flute player, singer and founder of Boys of the Lough, Cathal McConnell’s trio. Full of entertaining musical insights and the stories behind the tunes, Karen’s concerts take you into the timeless world of Scotland’s ancient instrument.