The new Ursula Burns album is called The Secret Melodies of Trees. Remarkably, it’s the first record in a 30-year career that is entirely made from her own harp instrumentals. Ursula has already achieved excellence in the fields of theatre, circus, performance and comedy. The Belfast artist is celebrated internationally as The Dangerous Harpist and, fittingly, this new record is another bold swerve, a return to the hands, the harp and the gift of composing.
The record came together in the early months of 2024. In one of the peak moments of creativity, she recorded eight tracks in a single day, with producer/musician Dónal O’Connor at RedBox Studios in Belfast. Several pieces feature the whistles of John McSherry, but essentially this is Ursula and her raw expression.
“Over the years. I’ve done everything to break the stereotypical image of the harp,” Ursula explains.“That was initially through songwriting and performance – taking it on a journey through comedy, circus, theatre and performance. But then it occurred to me, on coming up to my 30-year anniversary, that I’d never really made a harp album.”
One of the inspiring moments was a visit to the Paraguayan Harp Festival in October 2023. While Ursula has absorbed many Celtic influences, via her harpist mother Marie O’Neill and a family line of traditional players, she has mostly performed on Paraguayan harps, made in the workshop of Gustavo Arias. So, her style is a hybrid one, like no other.
“I came back from Paraguay,” she says, “and that’s when the seeds of this album were born. It was so profound and so life-changing. I have had all my pre-conceived notions of what Paraguay was and what their harping was. And it blew all that open. It gave me a major perspective in that I don’t really fit in anywhere with my harp. But that’s beautiful too. And I felt like celebrating the uniqueness of what I’ve worked to create.”
Some of the new tunes relate to that trip. El Jardin de Eliza Lynch is a vision of Asunción and her stay at the Gran Hotel del Paraguay. She realised that the 19th century ‘Queen’ of the nation, Eliza Lynch, was an astonishing figure from Cork, Ireland. So, Ursula filled the music with evocations of birdsong and beauty. Likewise, Dreaming in Violet as Jacaranda Petals Fall is a picture of the rich foliage that surrounded her.
Elsewhere, she was thinking of the Belfast Harpers Assembly of 1792, when the dwindling survivors of a great tradition had been gathered together. Their old melodies were transcribed by Edward Bunting, resulting in a precious collection. With this record, Ursula wanted to preserve her own style and composition. So, a tune like O’Neill and the Apple Tree considers Arthur O’Neill, a contemporary of Bunting, with an evocation of the musician’s final days and resting place in Tyrone and a memory of her grandfather, Charlie O'Neill, playing fiddle in the orchard.
The involvement of Dónal O’Connor, a respected fiddle player and Artistic Director of TradFest was an important connection to Ursula’s traditional music heritage. As the producer, he helped to ground the album to Ireland and encouraged her to develop in new ways.
As she was working on the record’s artwork, she realised that a defining theme of the album was the immense value of trees. She thought about an entrancing landscape (A Wish on the Road to Coleraine) and a scene near her old school in West Belfast (Night Circus at Bog Meadows). She thought about the lack of an independent environmental agency in Northern Ireland (Where the Sycamore Used to Be).
On this, the album’s most impactful track, Ursula was especially challenged. “I actually pulled back from my technique because my style is all the notes, all the time. But Where the Sycamore Used to Be is just the melody. It took every ounce of discipline in my body not to embellish it and make it big.”
The album has been supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, who also helped Ursula on a mission to replace her old, road-battered harp. The new instrument (called Valentina) is a Mexican design, made by Dusty Strings in Seattle. She bought it off a stockist in Utrecht and picked it up in Berlin. It will accompany Ursula as she tours the album, in parallel with her work with the Irish troupe, Circus 250, and her thought-provoking solo show of music and ideas, How Many Bardic Harpers Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb?
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