Scottish composer and harpist Hilary de Vries has released “Welcome the Winter Sun,” her first official Christmas single. The track is an original acoustic instrumental built around the wire-strung clarsach, the Gaelic harp whose metal strings give it a ringing, bell-like tone. It’s a holiday piece that skips the usual sleigh bells and sentimentality. De Vries describes it as seasonal music for listeners who want the mood without the tinsel.
The single comes from the Scottish Highlands, where de Vries lives and where much of her music begins. Landscape, people, and poetry are the recurring sources in her work. Most of her writing is for harp, recorder, and pipes, though she also writes songs, both on her own and with collaborators. On her harps, built by Ardival Harps, she uses Pythagorean tuning, an ancient system based on pure fifths that lets her chords ring with unusual clarity.
The clarsach has anchored both of her albums. Her debut, Cherry Blossom After Rain, was inspired by poetry set in Japan and moves between brief, haiku-like sketches and longer, more reflective pieces. Her follow-up, The Knockbain Road, started when she read an English translation of The Birlinn of Clanranald, an 18th-century Gaelic poem about a boat voyage through the Hebrides. She used the poem as the foundation for a new body of work rooted in the natural world, then recorded the album live outdoors.
Beyond her recordings, de Vries has published several collections of sheet music, among them The Barley Skimmers, Heartstone, and An Orkney Sampler. The largest is The Black Isle Collection, which gathers more than 70 tunes inspired by the Black Isle peninsula north of Inverness. Her compositions have aired on local and national radio, and other musicians have taken up her work and performed it themselves.
“Welcome the Winter Sun” is out now.
Featured Image: Hilary de Vries
