Based in southwest England, Griselda Sanderson is a musician and producer who plays various bowed instruments, including the traditional fiddle, Norwegian hardanger fiddle, viola, and nyckelharpa (Swedish bowed, keyed fiddle with sympathetic strings), as well as the piano .
One of six musical children of violin-maker Derick Sanderson she grew up in Clackmannanshire, central Scotland, attending the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama as a youth. She also played in the National Youth String Orchestra of Scotland.
Griselda went on to study at Dartington College of Arts in Devon (England), attaining a 1st class BA Hons degree in Music Performance and Composition and a PhD in Musicology on the subject of traditional Scottish and Irish music and the internet.
She has written several published articles on cross-cultural music collaborations.
Griselda’s expertise in ethnic bowed strings has led her to perform with The Royal Shakespeare Company, at Shakespeare’s Globe and many live performances with her original group Waulk Elektrik, later with Spyka and collaborations with world music artists such as Juldeh Camara from the Gambia, Amadou Diagne from Senégal and Simo Lagnawi from Morocco.
She was a senior lecturer in Music Performance for ten years at Dartington College of Arts in Devon and studied at the RSAMD in Glasgow before moving to the Southwest of England.
Griselda Sanderson talked about the musical instruments used on her 2017 album “Veer”, a collaoration with Portuguese musician Ricardo de Noronha: “The instruments I’m using on this album are ethnic bowed strings – the nyckelharpa (which is what I played on my last two solo albums), the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle and riti – a one-stringed fiddle from West Africa. Then I also played violin, double bass and piano.
“We had a lot of fun coming up with ideas, like the log xylophone that we used on ‘Fernworthy Circle’ that we found in a forest. Ricardo has played with Moroccan oud player Soufian Saihi, so we asked him to record oud on that track and ‘Grey Wethers’. We both love the timbres of unusual instruments. The thianou on the title track ‘Veer’ is a straw harp from Burkina Faso. Another time I was telling Ricardo about the stone man in Tan Dun’s ‘The Map’, so we found some pebbles and made mouth drums. Ricardo’s Dan-Mois (a kind of mouth harp from Vietnam) are made from American bullets that were left behind. We started recording just to see how these instruments would sound, and that was the beginning of the track ‘Dan-Moi’.”
More about Griselda Sanderson: Interview with Scottish Nyckelharpa Performer Griselda Sanderson
Discography
Solo albums:
Harpaphonics (2008)
Radial (2015)
Collaborations
Traders (Juldeh Camara & Griselda Sanderson; 2011)
Yakar (Amadou Diagne; 2013)
Veer (Waulk Records, 2017)
Waulk Elektrik:
Uprooted (1994)
House Music (1997)
Um-di-Um (1999)
Author: Angel Romero
Angel Romero y Ruiz has dedicated his life to musical exploration. His efforts included the creation of two online portals, worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. In addition, Angel is the co-founder of the Transglobal World Music Chart, a panel of world music DJs and writers that celebrates global sounds. Furthermore, he delved into the record business, producing world music studio albums and compilations. His works have appeared on Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Indígena Records and Music of the World.
Hello. I own one of your father’s violas and would like to know more about it. I don’t know if your father is still alive or if family members might have access to his workshop notes to get information about the instruments he made. thanks for any help you miight be able to provide.
Your career sounds fascinating!
Ragards,
Susan Grant