Harp
2024
Scottish harpist Ruth Wall performs on concert and lever harps, buzzing Renaissance bray harp and Gaelic wire strung harp. She is passionate about new music and performs with groups such as BBC Concert Orchestra, Goldfrapp, Kathryn Tickell, Sacconi Quartet and London Chamber Orchestra. Ruth has performed at venues including Berlin Philharmonic, Eden Project, Sydney Opera House, Spiral Hall Tokyo, Tate Gallery and Glastonbury as well as recording at studios including Air Lyndhurst, Abbey Road and Maida Vale.
She has worked with composers such as Peter Maxwell Davies, Howard Skempton, Gavin Bryars, and Laurence Crane, building up a repertoire of new works for the harp, leading to her first solo album ‘The Uncommon Harp’. Ruth also collaborates with her partner, composer Graham Fitkin as FitkinWall. Their first album ‘Kaplan’ for two synthesizers is based on the fictitious character in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and toured Japan and UK. In 2007 ‘Still Warm’ juxtaposed Ruth’s early harps with new electronics and live visuals, and in 2015 they released and toured their latest album ‘Lost’ for Gaelic wire harp, concert harp and Moog. Working with Graham’s 9 piece band Fitkin, she appeared on stage at the Royal Opera House, for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and on the 2016 albums ‘Vamp’ and ‘Veneer’. In 2022 she will join The Fairly Relentless Piano Quartet.
Ruth has worked with Will Gregory and Portishead’s Adrian Utley in a new soundtrack to accompany Carl Dreyer’s classic 1928 film ‘Joan of Arc’. She is also a member of the Will Gregory Moog Ensemble. She recorded and toured worldwide with Goldfrapp on ‘Seventh Tree’ and has recorded with artists including French singer Nolwenn Leroy, saxophonist Simon Haram, bassist Charlie Jones, and trumpeter Noel Langley.
Since 2000 Ruth has performed in galleries including Tate St Ives and Barbara Hepworth Gallery alongside work by artists including Brian Wynter and James Hugonin, as well as collaborating with Alessandra Ausenda on a sound installation involving a giant rotating dress.
She toured extensively with the acclaimed aerial theatre company Ockham’s Razor and joined Kneehigh Theatre in 2017 in their production of ‘The Tin Drum’.
In 2019 Ruth performed concerts at the Australian Chamber Music Festival curated by Kathryn Stott with Goldner Quartet, Lotte Betts Dean and Chinese pipa player Wu Man. She will tour her new show Harpland with Graham Fitkin and collaborate with singer Rui Fu and band in 2022-3.
Radio and TV appearances include BBC Radio 3 Late Junction Sessions and In Tune, Radio 4 and Jools Holland. She features in ‘Loving Vincent’, Ben Wheatley’s ‘Sightseers’, Jocelyn Pook’s Drawing Life and John Lunn’s soundtrack for the BBC series ‘The White Queen’.
Ruth has recorded for EMI, Mercury Music, Sony BMG, GFR, Bedroom Community and Universal.