by Catherine L. Tully

Artist: Sarah Marie Mullen
Album: "The Wild Woods"
Year produced: 2006

Sarah Marie Mullen has been in love with the harp since kindergarten, and it shows! Drawn most often to the 32 or 34 string Celtic harp, Ms. Mullen has a lovely style and feel to her playing. The arrangements on this CD are quite beautiful and you can tell that a great deal of thought went into their preparation.

Although an instrumental album, The Wild Woods is meant to "evoke a story of a young knight and his fey love of a faerie princess," according to Mullen. Sometimes sprightly, other times wistful, the tracks on this CD have one thing in common no matter what the sound--they are classy through and through.

Whether it is the years of experience she has in playing the instrument or just her innate musical talent that brings such a fresh sound to her playing is hard to say. The album has a particularly refreshing arrangement of the traditional "Greensleeves" that really highlights Mullen's ability and style. Her fingers fly over the strings and you can actually feel the expressiveness come through--a tough thing for a harpist to do.

Those who love to listen to Celtic harp will be quite pleased with this CD and will love the amount of tracks it holds as well--17. Transformative and uplifting, this is a really nice group of songs and they are extremely well-played too.

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Catherine L. Tully is a freelance writer and photographer who specializes in the arts. She has written for American Style and Classical Singer, among others and reviews music for Celtic MP3s Music Magazine. You can reach her through her photography website at www.moonbeamdigital.com.

Labels: cd_review_2006

Posted by Marc Gunn, Sunday, August 20, 2006.
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