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Faerie Harp
Debi Roger's enthusiasm, creativity, and humor shine when she shares the love of her Scots-Irish heritage through traditional Celtic (Kel-tic) music and stories. Awarded grants through the North Dakota Council on the Arts' Traditional Arts Apprenticeship program, she continues to study the rare wire-strung harp with master Ann Heymann of Minnesota. Also through this program, she learned traditional Irish songs sung in Gaelic (the Irish language) under Dáithí Sproule. In addition to the CD Faerie Harp, she has recorded two other albums: Songs of the Seventh Cavalry and Stardust Twins. Debi is also a talented performing artist. At home directing a full-length musical, leading a sing-a-long before 7,000 second graders, or singing a solo on the stage of Carnegie Hall, this Mandan (North Dakota) music/theater specialist performs throughout the Midwest at concerts, schools, festivals, and coffeehouses. Listed on the Art-in-Education Artists Roster for the North Dakota Council on the Arts, Debi has directed and acted in over 70 plays and hosts a weekly folk radio show on North Dakota Public Radio.
Born and raised in Maine, Sue Bicknell learned her first guitar chords from her sister Peggy. The two sisters performed folk music with friends during high school and Sue went on to work and perform during her years at the University of Maine. There, she was exposed to music from a broad range of traditions including those of Ireland, Scotland, and England. Eventually, she moved to Bismarck (North Dakota), where she hosted a folk music program on public radio and performed for several years with the Surrogate Sisters, a group of women who enjoyed lush harmonies and a variety of musical styles. An interest in family history led her to study the folk songs of her ancestors - from Ireland, Scotland, England, and Germany - in the languages those ancestors had spoken. Songs in English and German (her college major) came fairly easily, but the Gaelic languages were a baffling mystery. Already experienced in the Irish harp tradition with her friend Debi Rogers, Sue and Debi embarked on a new adventure: to learn to sing in Irish. With the help of an Traditional Arts Apprenticeship grant from the North Dakota Council on the Arts, they found a master teacher in Dáithí Sproule, a native of Derry, Ireland living in the St. Paul area. The results of those lively music sessions can be heard on several selections from Faerie Harp.
Album © 2002 Little House Music Raw recording and interviews for documentation and other archival purposes supported in part by the North Dakota Council on the Arts (which receives funding from the state legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts) and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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