Quotes

I had been waiting for this person all my life. (On her fiancé who died in an accident on July 1998.)

[observation, 2013] I think anybody who's working in the music industry and has been in it for any length of time will state unequivocally that the industry is in an advanced state of collapse.

[on taking a hiatus from performing for several years] There were big big changes from that time [1998 to 2007], so I would say we hadn't really fully kept up to speed. But one thing I was well aware of is the lack of copyright reform. And it was a subject I followed along with, and participated in the last stretch, when our government brought in copyright reform. a few years ago.

[on young performers beginning as buskers] I definitely encourage that. It's potentially a pretty brutal and honest way of seeing if what you're doing is of interest. But you have to set yourself in the right situation. The Market is a good place, particularly Saturday mornings and particularly after nine o'clock. The serious shoppers do that between six and nine and they're really not interested in music. But the social shoppers, with their kids, they'll stop and say, 'Here Johnny, here's a harp and isn't that lady..' Whatever. They've got time, they've got interest and they've also got money.

I heard one recording of a harper from Brittany - Alan Stivell - and what was so interesting was he wove a Celtic harp with cello and drum kit and Breton pipes altogether, and electric guitar. And I thought, oh, that's really neat. He had a bit of rock, but also it wasn't the Highland pipes but the Breton pipes. Yet the cello line was a kind of classical kind of instrument. I would say that's an influence I adopted into my own music.

[on her career] It has been a trajectory I could never have imagined, and never did imagine,or even aspire towards while growing up in Morden [Manitoba]. I always wanted to be a veterinarian, although I played music from the age of five. My first love was animals - I worked on a farm my grandparents had. Finding myself in music and the kind of unique path that I've taken - whether it's been how I sought my inspiration from the history of the Celts or the fact that we have been able to perform all over the world - if I was hit by a Mack truck tomorrow I would say I've had a very rich and rewarding life.

When I think of "Spanish Guitars and Night Plazas" I was reflecting back on my first trip to Spain - I think it was in February of 1982. I traveled to various places, including Grenada. It was the first time I'd ever traveled there. I just found the Spanish aesthetic, the music, the landscape, the food, the vitality of the people, something really exciting and inspiring.

I think the industry is a collapsed industry, the ecosystem that I once knew 20-30 years ago is mostly gone. To continue in an industry where it's gone from artists seeing 24 or 25 cents per song on vinyl or CD down to maybe less than $1 per thousand plays is just not a viable business model.

Particularly if I'm travelling with the hopes of connecting it to a recording, it's a more research adventure type of thing.

Touring is in some ways the most enjoyable of the whole enterprise because I also have chosen to manage my career all these years ... The touring process and infrastructure is really like a well-oiled machine and I enjoy meeting people when we're out on the road.