Una Hunt Plays - The Wild Irish Girl and her Harp, Friday 25 July 2014

We've heard about an intriguing radio recital from Ireland.  It takes place this Friday evening, 25th July.

THE WILD IRISH GIRL AND HER HARP

… a portrait of Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan

 

on The Lyric Feature

 

25 July 2014               RTÉ Lyric fm            7-8pm             96-99fm

 

A portrait of the extraordinary celebrity cult figure - Sydney Owenson, later Lady Morgan, who penned the once-famous novel - The Wild Irish Girl (1806). In addition to her writing, she also enjoyed a flourishing career as a drawing-room singer and performer on the Royal Portable Irish harp built by John Egan. Sydney Owenson styled herself on Glorvina, the harp-playing princess from her novel, thereby initiating a fashion for her own brand of pseudo-Celtic dress, and she also composed some quite influential songs, a fact that is no longer recognised.

 

Music on the programme includes specially recorded world-premiere recordings of Owenson’s Hibernian Melodies performed by Laura Murphy, mezzo soprano and Una Hunt, piano, along with harp airs played by Boston-based Nancy Hurrell on John Egan’s harps. Contributors include Nancy Hurrell, Claire Connolly (Professor of Modern English, University College Cork) and Julie Donovan (George Washington University, Washington D.C.). Engineering by Ben Rawlins.

 

Presented and produced by Una Hunt.

 

A Heritage Music Production for RTÉ Lyric fm. This programme is made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland's Sound and Vision Funding Scheme.

 

LISTEN BACK

The Wild Irish Girl can be heard live on the internet through the RTÉ lyric fm website and can be accessed at any time for a week after broadcast.  Just go to http://www.rte.ie/lyricfm/features/ and click the 'LISTEN BACK' icon to hear the current feature. Thereafter, the programme is available on the Lyric fm Archive."