Celtic Journeys: Cécile Corbel
Harp solo and songs

Photo Credit: Natt Gory

 
“Picture, if you will, a young slip of a girl with red hair who dances right out of a collection of fairy tales, with a voice that swings back and forth somewhere between the high notes of a Kate Bush, the purity of a Sinead O’Connor and the mysticism of Enya, and you’ll be able to get a pretty good idea of this incredible harpist who draws inspiration from traditional Celtic music and composes and arranges her own songs.” Sydney Morning Herald

“Cécile Corbel is the very image of her songs, serene and untroubled, fragile, yet solid, too. She’s from Brittany, land of the lament and tales of wonder and magic. . . .”  Libération

“Cécile belongs to a new generation of folk singers . . . who are reinventing the standards of traditional music for audiences in the 21st century.” Sydney Morning Herald

As a winner of the prize Paris Jeunes Talents Musique in 2005, awarded in Paris, Cécile Corbel is a harpist and singer of great range. Through a repertory covering Breton, Irish, Scottish, as well as Turkish, Israeli, and Sephardic pieces, she carries us along on a journey beyond time, to realms bordering on poetry and melancholy . . .

The performer

A talented singer and harpist, Cécile Corbel was born in Brittany, in the land’s end part of the region, named, appropriately enough, Finistère, nearly at the end of the world. As a youngster, she followed her parents around in their traveling marionette show. She would play the guitar while they were on the road, but it wasn’t until she was a teen that she discovered and learned to play the Celtic harp.
East meets West in her work, which is performed with rare and poignant feeling. Her sweet voice, often compared to Kate Bush’s, adds to this realm her own powerful touch of poetry, which borders on melancholy. With the eternal vibrations that pass through her work, her strong sense of her culture and a good dose of charisma, she becomes a beguiling chanteuse, and the harp, a wizard, during a journey beyond time, composed of a lovely kind of music that is pointed and accessible at once.

Performances and Recordings

In 2006, Cécile Corbel came out with her second album, songbook 1, which opened the doors of the Olympia for her as she opened there for Laurent Voulzy, and led as well to her sharing the stage with such performers as Atlan, Alan Stivell, Carlos Nunez, Dan ar Braz, Hélène Flaherty, Ousmane Touré . . . The young Breton singer-songwriter and her musicians share her world of Celtic pop folk with audiences in France and throughout the entire world. She has performed at the Reservoir, the Maroquinerie, and the Satellit Café in Paris and in numerous venues and festival throughout France.  She has also performed to appreciative crowds in Europe, most notably in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, England, Estonia and Poland and in Australia, where she appeared in the Port Fairy Folk Festival, in the U.S, where she played in the Chicago Celtic Festival.  She even appeared in Paraguay and Burma!
Her second album, songbook 2, came out November 17, 2008.

Cast

Cécile Corbel: Harp and voice

Program

Concert length: approximately one hour and fifteen minutes.
Cécile Corbel will provide a musical journey with Celtic harp, with the performance of the following pieces:
(It should be noted that the program is set, with the right to substitute alternate pieces)

1. Bran (Breton traditional song/Patrick Ewen)
2. Sally free and easy (Cyril Tawney - Angleterre)
3. Le vent m'emporte (Cécile Corbel)
4. Shir al Etz (Israel traditional song)
5. Yarim Gitti (Anatolie traditional song)
6. Sans faire un bruit (Cécile Corbel)
7. Painted veil (Cécile Corbel)
8. Sweet Song (Cécile Corbel)
9. Valse des Ondines (Cécile Corbel)
10. La chanson de Sarah  (Cécile Corbel)
11. Bemnoz (Breton traditional song)
12. The hieland Sodger (Scotish traditional song)
13. La fille damnée (Cécile Corbel)
14. Suil a Ruin – (Gaelic traditional song  – Ireland)
15. La belle s'est endormie (Cajun traditional song)
16. Je m'endors (Traditional hullaby – Louisiana)
17. Corpus Christi carol (medieval canticle)

Link to the artist’s website: www.cecile-corbel.com
Links to audio clips :
www.myspace.com/cecilecorbel
http://www.cecile-corbel.com/fr/musique-disques-cecile-corbel.html
http://www.youtube.com/branmusicfrance

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