It may be cold and wintery here in Europe, but the musicians of November's Camac Voice must be feeling warmer, as they're in the middle of summer in Australia! The clip you can now hear on www.camac-harps.com is from 'An Andro' on Christine Morphet and Pete Franche's debut CD, Telenn Tri. Bringing the wheel full circle back to where, as it happens, Camac Harps are based, An Andro is inspired by the andro dance from Breton folk music.

Pete: "We first met when Christine brought her harp to an Irish pub session that I help to run. I play the piano accordion as well as guitar and bouzouki, so I suppose we were an unlikely combination. The harp is not a common instrument in Australia, so to many people the perception of a harp is that of a pretty, rather inoffensive instrument you see occasionally hear playing glissandos in orchestral pieces! So it was a pleasant surprise to hear the harp being used as a lead melody instrument in the Celtic tradition."
Christine: "I learnt the harp as a teenager when I changed piano teachers, and my new teacher had a pedal harp in her teaching room! I then persuaded my parents to purchase my first lever harp and continued with both piano and harp lessons. Unfortunately after five years of learning classical harp, I gave up music and focused on work.
Twenty years later, I rediscovered my love of the harp, and also discovered Celtic music for the first time. I went to an Irish pub session with my harp as I'd learnt a few Celtic tunes and wanted somewhere to play them. I found the session very welcoming, especially as no-one there had seen a 'real live harp' before.
As Telenn Tri, we first performed together at a Medieval fair in South Australia. From that initial performance we have been asked to play at various costumed events, including a wedding in the caves at Naracoorte. Over the last four years we have performed at many Australian festivals including the National Celtic Festival, Pt Fairy Festival, and we are looking forward to playing at the Australian Celtic Festival in New South Wales next year. Over time we have developed a varied repertoire of traditional and contemporary music, and we are always looking for something new to play.
I attended the Dinan harp festival this year in workshops with Myrdhin and Dominig Bouchaud which I found very inspirational! This has given us more ideas and material to add to our concerts and forthcoming CDs.
On our current CD, which we released earlier this year, An Andro (a Breton dance) doesn't appear to have any other name. I picked up the tune from the inaugural New Zealand Harp Festival in Wellington, and it became a requested tune at the sessions. Over time this tune has grown into its current form, which is much faster and more driving than how a traditional Andro would be played.
For a long time people have asked us for recordings of our music, and eventually this year we managed it. All the instruments are played by us, with my niece designing the artwork, and all recording and sound engineering was completed by Pete."