From the "Folk Harp Journal", Spring 1991
Transcribed By Ron Nixon

"A very nice lady who helps operate a harp and folk music store in California gave me 
a copy of the "Folk Harp Journal" that she edits. It features an interview with Loreena by 
Lauren Foster-Macleod. This lady understood the depth of tone in my voice when 
I expressed my love of the music and how jealous I was that she had a guest pass for one 
of recent concerts and was able to meet L.M.. The date on this journal is spring '91 
so it's a little dated but I think you will find it interesting." 

Notation:

Lauren Foster-Macleod = LF:
Loreena McKennitt = LM: 

On hearing Alan Stivell's "Renaissance of the Celtic Harp" in the 1970's, Loreena
McKennitt was smitten with the quality of the Celtic harp, but was unable to obtain a harp
of her own until she found one in a music store in London, England, in the early 1980's. It is
that same harp - a black Lyon & Healy Troubadour that she plays in concert halls or
busking in the market. It looks much traveled and much loved. 

Loreena is a musician who combines her incredible singing voice with original arrangements
on harp and keyboards. Along with beautiful traditional ballads, she sings her own
compositions, some of which blend old traditions with newer ones, as in her "Huron
'Beltane' Fire Dance" where she finds the parallels in the fire dances of the Celts and North
American Indians. The result leaves her audience spellbound.



LF:  Tell me about your musical roots. Was there music at home?
LM:  No, there really wasn't. It wasn't like a traditional Irish family. My mother's a public health
nurse and my father's a livestock dealer, and the only time there was music around our
house was when my grandmother came to visit, or when she came to baby-sit, and she
played the piano. But I would say that the most influential person in terms of music was
actually my music teacher. She was an extraordinary woman to have in a community the
size of Morden, which is in Manitoba - 3,500 people. She had tremendous flights of fancy,
and she was not your regular music teacher. 

She, and the man who came to be my grade ten English teacher, co-wrote an operetta and
they brought in someone from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet to choreograph a bunch of us
kids. She would forever be producing this thing or that thing with a children's' choir, which
was certainly one of the best in Manitoba and also in Canada. [In competitions] it always
came very close to the Winnipeg Mennonite Children's Choir, which was quite well known.
So that was really my strongest musical influence as a child. 

LF:  You were in the choir as well?
LM:   Oh, yes, and I studied piano from the age of five, for about ten years. I went up to about
grade nine, but I really wasn't cut for the classical world. I don't think, first of all, that I had
the underlying passion that it needs to bring on board the level of discipline that classical
music demands.

LF:  How long have you been playing the harp?
LM:  Either I got the harp in '83 or '84; so that's about six or seven years. I was able to bring a
lot of classical scales and arpeggios to the harp, as well as being able to play by ear. All my
arrangements are my own, and they change every time I play them. 
LF:  So, the musical training that you had before the Celtic harp was basically the piano? 
LM:  Yes, ten years of piano and about five years of voice. 
LF:  What inspired you to learn to play harp? 
LM:  When I moved to Winnipeg I took my grade twelve in Winnipeg and then I just stayed on
there. I joined a folk club and a number of the members were from the British Isles. They
would bring to the folk sessions some recordings, or they'd have tunes, and we'd be asking,
"Where did you learn that tune?"; and they'd say, "Oh, it was off the Bothy Band," or
"Planxty" or "Steeleye Span." That was when I was first exposed to music from the British
Isles, and I was smitten by it. I maintain that it chose me. 

LF:  Is your Troubadour your first harp and is it your only harp? 
LM:  I have a smaller Celtic harp, like a lap harp, but it's more suitable for very period pieces,
and just instrumental pieces. I find the joy of the Troubadour harp is that it has the whole
bottom end section, which doesn't interfere with the pitch where my voice is resting at. 
LF:  Do you know how old your harp is? 
LM:  I don't know. It's not an antique by any means, but it is the first model of the Lyon and
Healy (Troubadour). 
LF:  I've noticed that you play harp sidesaddle. Is it to better accommodate singing, or is it more
comfortable? 
LM:  No, it's just a casualness sometimes. I get talking, and then I begin a piece, and then I
realize I'm still in my talking position, so it's not a conscious kind of thing. It's not a very
good position to sing in. I really need to sit up straight to really get the full wind of air in the
diaphragm, as well as it's not the best position to be playing the harp in, your body's a little
off kilter, so usually when I find myself having begun a song in that position, I then switch
over during the piece somewhere. 

LF:  When you compose your accompaniments, do you use the harp or piano? 
LM:  A combination - mostly the piano, but from time to time I use the harp. On "Stolen Child"
when I wrote that piece I only had the harp. I was in England. I was actually asked to set a
Yeats poem to music, so I wrote that piece on the harp. But most of it is on the piano, it
depends on what the project is. If I'm working on film scores, then I'm working with a
combination of synthesizers and acoustic instruments. 
LF:  Do you often play music with other harpers? 
LM:  No, I don't. When I first got my harp there was another harpist, Mary Anderson, who was
also just beginning, and I was asked to do a concert at Guelph for the International
Women's Day. Mary was wanting to get some public experience, and so on, so I asked her
to come along and we prepared a few pieces together. A wonderful image that occurred in
that visit was in the Town Hall or something, upstairs, and there wasn't a dressing room, so
we slipped into the washroom to change and tune up and so on. We each picked a cubicle,
and sat in each cubicle with our harps, tuning up. I was thinking, gosh, wouldn't it make a
wonderful cover shot! 
LF:  Have you always sung? 
LM:  Well, since I was five, because, as I mentioned, my music teacher for any of her students
that were just studying piano, it was a pre- requisite, you had to belong to the children's
choir as well, and so I sang from the age of five. 
LF:  How much time do you spend practicing or rehearsing each day? 
LM:  There are often weeks that go by; if I'm not performing, I won't be touching the harp. The
only time I sort of approach the harp off hours, as it were, not performing, as in
composition or in preparing new material. But in terms of practicing technique,
unfortunately, I haven't had time to do that, because I administrate so much of my career
and that administrating takes most of the time. 

LF:  You are you own manager and agent? 
LM:  ...and record label. So I not only produce my recordings but I supervise the distribution of
them, and I've several accounts set up across the country, and that, in itself, has become a
full-time business. But there's just an awful lot of work, in terms of, well, here I am traveling
with three other musicians and two crew, and we're doing twenty-five dates across the
country, and it's just you know: accommodation, equipment, rental of vehicles, negotiation,
servicing of contracts, publicity, interviews, you know, it just goes on and on. So, there gets
to be very little time to just practice technique, but I'm hoping to delegate more of these
other responsibilities, so I can practice more, and create more. 
LF:  How long does it take to get a song in shape, with the singing treatment and harp
arrangement, ready to perform? 
LM:  It really depends on the piece, on the event that I'm working towards, and also on the
period of time that is available to me. I've been wanting to learn a piece for about a month
now. I've managed to type out the lyrics, and I take spare moments while we're driving
around in the van to memorize the lyrics, but it really, really varies. Sometimes I can learn
something and perform it in a week, but other times it just takes longer. It depends on how
badly I want to do it and how badly I need to do it. 

LF:  When you're collaborating with a guitarist on a piece, is it completely mutual or does one
adapt to fit the other? 
LM:  Usually what I'll do with any of the musicians that I'm working with - the guitarist included,
who's Brian Hughes is that I play it and I'll say, "It's this kind of a feel, and this kind of
imagery, or this kind of color," and we'll just try it and go over it. But it is certainly, to a
degree, a collaborative kind of thing, but usually I'll come in with certain parameters already
set. 
LF:  You have a particular interest in British and Irish traditional ballads. Are they your favorite? 
LM:  I guess in a way they are. I find the melodies very, very strong, particularly the Irish; and
also the fact that the Irish, in strong ways depending on some of the music, tend to be older,
tend to have this more modal type of structure; I think that's partly because Ireland wasn't,
sort of, conquered to the same degree that England and Scotland and Wales were. I mean,
Julius Caesar and the Romans sort of stopped at England, so there are many more older
dimensions left in Ireland than exist elsewhere, and that is also reflected in the music. It's
some of those more primitive elements, the modal system or the drones, that I find, again,
instinctively drawn to. It's not like an intellectual, cerebral experience or choice, but I do
find myself very much drawn to it. 

LF:  They're fun to sing too. With the sean-nos tradition, they have all those, sort of vocal
curlicues. 
LM:  Yes, which is very eastern, and that's the whole Celtic root. It's commonly held now that
the Celts came from the area that we now know as India, or North Africa, so you still hear
a lot of those eastern influences. Oh, yes - in spades. It's great! 
LF:  I heard you mention in past interviews that you go to Ireland yearly for research and work,
to Glenstal Abbey and Annaghmakerrig. 
LM:  Annaghmakerrig is an artist's retreat up in County Monaghan. It was the home of Sir
Tyrone Guthrie and his wife Judith. Tyrone Guthrie was a world-class theatre director, who
was also the first artistic director at the theatre in Stratford, where I live, and that's how I
found out about it. So, it's a retreat. It's just a place to get away from the phone and all
responsibilities, bring your own project and really settle in and focus in on it. 

Glenstal Abbey was just simply a location where I recorded some tracks for the second
recording. But usually when I go to Ireland I go to the west coast in County Clare where
the traditional music is still the strongest, and you're most likely to find sessions happening in
a very casual basis, and I have some very good friends who live there now - instrument
makers and musicians. 
LF:  Have you researched the history of the Celtic harp? 
LM:  No, no I haven't. I would say that most harp players, harpists, harpers know far more
about the structure, the history and the nuances of the instrument than I do. Again, it's been
less out of lack of interest; it's just been a matter of time. 
LF:  You have a deep feel for the Celtic tradition, I take it. 
LM:  Oh, yes, oh yes. In older cultures that are more rooted into the sea- sons and that are very
integrated to the earth, really, because a lot of songs reflect that. And I feel that, as a
species, we've removed ourselves so far now, we've set up a very unnatural position in
relationship to the earth. So, those cultures, particularly the Celts, who for example - they
felt that the souls of their ancestors were born in the tree, or resided in the trees, so they
held the trees in great reverence. Oh, and the lunar cycles of the year, and the solar cycles
and ... the Celts, differing from a lot of the other agrarian societies who set up their New
Year's around the twenty-first of December at the winter solstice; the shortest day of the
year. 

The Celts, because they were so, they were much more nomadic and had herds, their New
Year was based on when they brought the cattle in from pasture, as it were, and so their
New Year is the first of Nov., and the New Year's Eve of course is what we call
Halloween. 
LF:  Or Samhain. 
LM:  Yes. 
LF:  You've mentioned in another interview that you feel that you're participating in the history of
the harp. What are you aiming at with it? 
LM:  Well, just that participation, you know, because I feel that in the bardic tradition there were
people who brought information, entertainment and so on to the people. They became a
vehicle through which that could pass and it's a form of the media, and I feel, again what
we've done it that we've ghettoized what we now call the arts; visual arts, theater, music,
and that even the term "arts" we've put them into this very formal context whereas they used
to exist in a much more integrated and much broader social level, and it was a form or the
media. Now the media has become radio, television, or newspaper, and they've become
monopolized; and we even go so far as to call the arts "arts and entertainment" section; and
by the mere nature of doing that, we've excluded all the other functions that music and
theater and storytelling and so on evolved over the centuries. Again, I feel that it's very vital
to our own identity and our ability to address and deal with certain social problems and
certain social circumstances, and just simply establish a sense of identity - cultural identity. 

LF:  What sort of things inspire you in your own composing of music? 
LM:  A lot of things. Again, I look for a more ancient ...or... threads, you know. I look for some
threads which might have gotten broken off or lost somewhere, and try to bring them back
in, whether it's through geography or time; or, for example, another thing or culture that I've
been very interested in (but again, not in the "flavor of the month" kind of thing) has been
our North American First Peoples' culture, because there are a lot of reverence for trees,
their imagery of the salmon or the raven, and the symbolism that goes with these, their
rooted ness to the seasons, their rooted ness to the earth; and we're so fortunate to be this
lost contemporary culture that we are, as a white people in this land, and still have amongst
us people of an older culture; and I feel that the future is through them; it's through that
culture. 
LF:  It hasn't been lost yet, like a lot of the Celtic tradition. 
LM:  That's right. So what I endeavor to do, through my music, is to, for example with "Parallel
Dreams," bring those parallel threads from different corners, of integration, and again, of
liberty of people, or liberty of, not just people, but of living... 
LF:  Wake some people up too. 
LM:  Yeah. It sounds ... I don't know ... some pie in the sky, I suppose to some degree; But
again, I think that we as a species on the earth have got to reacquaint ourselves with the
fundamentals, and that exists by reintegrating ourselves. And it all hinges on natural
phenomena, the natural sciences and the natural elements. 

LF:  I would like to ask you how your music is a spiritual expression. 
LM:  Well, it is, but I feel that when it happens, or when it's working, it's not a solo experience.
Then again, I feel like who I am in my skill, and what I do ... I'm a vehicle through which
something greater happens. That it's an interaction, and a shared interaction with people
who are ex- posed to the music. And that becomes, I suppose, what one might call a
spiritual experience. But again, I try not to make it, I don't really like talking about it a lot. I
think when it happens, everyone knows. It explains itself, or something. All I can do is set
up the circumstances in which it's likely to happen; like a concert, and a good voice, and all
the elements are going smoothly, and so on. I call it "The Visit" you see. 
LF:  A spiritual visitation? 
LM:  Well, sort of. Without being kind of corny about it.

LF:  Recently you've composed music for the N.F.B Studio D films by Donna Read, "The
Goddess Remembered" and "The Burning Times," which must have been pretty exciting as
a collaboration. Did you compose the music to fit the film or did they edit the film to fit the
music? 
LM:  No, usually in film they come up with a fine cut, or they'll give me a copy of the film, a rough
cut, which is quite close to the length of the film. When I get the rough cut I work on
musical ideas and textures and so on, while they're working towards the fine cut, which
means the final edited version of the film where every scene has its own length and so on.
While they're working on that, I'm working with the director; we're deciding on the musical
textures and instrumentation. And then when they're finished with the fine cut and we've
settled on the musical textures and those parameters, I work with a copy of the film that has
time code burnt right into it. Then I tailor each scene; I tailor the music to fit the picture. It
gets to be very, very tricky because each piece of music has its own sense of flow, and has
a whole sort of life of its own, and so you can't sort of put something in and then, all of a
sudden, just chop it off in midstream. You feel like it has to have a natural flowing
completion that doesn't sound disruptive. 
LF:  It worked very well. What compositions are you presently working on? 
LM:  In which territory? I'm working on a number of fronts. I'm working on another short film for
the Film Board. It's a ten minute piece that encapsulates most of those Studio D films. I've
been also asked to compose music for a dance for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, so I'm
reading a script, as it were, of what that will ultimately be. And then I'm just simply
conceptualizing working on the next recording, which I'll be recording next year, to be
released next fall. 
LF:  I'm wondering what other musicians like singers and harpers have really influenced you. 
LM:  Alan Stivell, initially, and I like quite a diversity of music. I've been listening - I don't have
the liner notes - somebody sent me this tape of Norwegian Medieval music, which I quite
adore. It's very exotic. And then ...Dire Straits, Peter Gabriel, I don't listen to a lot of harp
music, oddly enough. I don't know if that's so odd or not. I guess I'm less interested in the
traditional kind of replication of the harp music. I feel that territory is so well covered by
many other people who do it better justice than I would. 

Where my focus is, is really using the harp as the primary instrument that I play on, but also
as a musical and philosophical focus point. That's the focal point. As I was saying in the
beginning, that it's from that, that I go out and will bring in, like the Udu drum, or the
dumbeg in the "Huron 'Beltane' Fire Dance", which are more African kinds of instruments;
or sitar in "Breaking the Silence;" or ukalin, which is an odd invention. So I bring the
imagery back, that in some way is related to the harp. 

LF:  When you're creating, do you think first as a vocalist or as a musician who plays
instruments? 
LM:  I honestly don't think about any kind of parameters in that sense. I just sit down with a
piece of music and ... 
LF:  Just whatever suits the expression, I guess
LM:  Yes...oh, yes, and in some ways, it's again like stripping away layers so that what was there
to begin with can be illuminated. So you just work away, as opposed to the concept of
creating something. Sometimes that is the case, but also sometimes it's stripping away layers
of things, so that what you are left with is exposed...what existed in the first place. If that
makes any sense. It's like sculpting. It's like believing that there's ultimately a sculpture
inside this block of wood; and what the person's doing, instead of they being the creator
imposing on it, there's actually something in the middle that's waiting there to be exposed;
and that you're sort of peeling away all the stuff; and it's a trust; and it's a faith that there is
something there. Again, it's something that we as a species have got to get over, that we're
the ultimate creators. 
LF:  Could you recall a particularly memorable experience you have had with or as a result of
playing you harp? 
LM:  Oh, there have been many. But, probably the funniest involved busking in England almost a
year and a half ago. I'd wanted to busk down at Covent Gardens, and friends of mine
brought me down there and, essentially - to make a very long story short there was a man
that was exposing himself behind me, and a policeman who had come along to take me
away ended up taking him away instead. That was quite fun. There are several moments!