Folk, Jazz etc: Corrina celebrates entwined anniversaries of the harp and clarsach

"SYMBIOTIC" is how harpist and singer Corrina Hewat sees the relationship between the Edinburgh International Harp Festival and Comunn na Clarsaich, the Clarsach Society, which runs it.

Such is the inspiration behind her composition for no fewer than six harps, which she has written to mark the 30th anniversary of the festival and the 80th anniversary of the society.

The piece, The Song of the Oak and the Ivy, was inspired by a story from A Little Book of Profitable Tales by the 19th-century American children's author, Eugene Field.

Hewat stumbled on the story online while researching the commission. "I thought of the society as an oak tree, something quite grand," she explains, alluding to the vigorous Scottish harp revival of recent years.

Once regarded very much as a drawing-room instrument, with lingering overtones of Victorian Celtic mist, the harp now embraces a healthy multiplicity of styles, ancient and modern, including the kind of cutting-edge, jazz influenced playing through which Hewat has made her reputation.

"I was looking on the web and I found Field's Little Book and his beautiful story, about the oak and the ivy and the one supporting the other," recalls Hewat. "I think the festival and the Clarsach Society have that sort of connection and communication."

Hewat has performed in often genre-spanning groups such as Bachu, with her jazz pianist husband David Milligan, in vocal trio Shine and the in folk-jazz big band The Unusual Suspects.

The Suspects' latest album, Big Like This, features The Lorient Suite, which she and Milligan composed for the Festival Interceltique, in the Breton town of Lorient, with great drifts of brass and bagpipes. For six harps, The Song of the Oak and Ivy will sound rather different, but with plenty of string-driven muscle of its own, she promises.

She has chosen harpists from different generations and styles for the performance, including two wire-strung clarsachs, played by Mary Macmaster (an early influence on Hewat) and the early music specialist Bill Taylor (with whom she played her first professional gig).

"Then myself and Wendy Stewart, who will both play acoustic and electric harps, then the younger generation in Heather Downie, who was my pupil at the RSAMD, and Tristan Le Govic from Brittany.

"It includes strathspeys, jigs and reels, but also some really lush patterns that use a really big harp voice. And I can't ignore my own musical influences, so there will be some Pat Metheny-ish stuff coming in as well."

Helped by funding from Creative Scotland, her composition will receive a second airing at the Cromarty Harp Village, on her native Black Isle, in September. Things have come a long way since Hewat, now 40, started learning a the age of 12.Like so many other emerging players, she rented her harp from the Clarsach Society. Her first visit to the Edinburgh Harp Festival in the mid 1980s, she says, "just blew my mind".

This 30th festival sees the return of old favourites such as the Sileas duo of Patsy Seddon and Mary Macmaster, American Celtic harpist Kim Robertson with her trio, classical stars Catrin Finch and Edward Witsenburg and, from Ireland, Kathleen Loughnane.

Other guests include Highland harpist Ingrid Henderson and friends, historic harp specialist Bill Taylor (performing with Canty singer Rebecca Tavener), Breton Tristan Le Govic and Colombian player Diego Laverde. Younger musicians include the remarkable 14-year-old Benjamin Creighton Griffiths, and Ailie Robertson.

There's also a programme of workshops and courses, among which the organisers are particularly anxious to encourage applicants for the beginners' classes - which once stimulated and inspired many of those who, like Hewat, now feature large on the programme.

• The Edinburgh International Harp Festival runs from 8-13 April at Merchiston Castle School. For a full programme, see www.harpfestival.co.uk also www.clarsachsociety.co.uk