Cheyenne Brown is from Alaska but has been based in Scotland for the past 15 years where she has studied the Scottish harp from both a performance and a research perspective and works to perform and teach the Scottish harp locally and abroad.

Cheyenne’s duo with Alaskan fiddler Tory Dugan has just released their 2016 album, Road Soda. Growing up in the mountains of Alaska, their music stems from a love of folk music and improvisation.  Drums and bass feature throughout, making this an album for grooving and moving. “sparky and well-sprung… Cheyenne and Tory definitely ‘hit it off’ on this sound stage, with plenty of fortuitously improvisatory conjoining for the listener to savour.” -Living Tradition

Homebound, a seven-piece band spanning Scotland, Germany, Finland & India, recently released their 2016 album, Adroneline.  Featuring the musical element of the drone, the band creates a “pancultural buzz that unites our music”, creating adrenaline in the body!  With harp, double bagpipes, cello, guitar, drumkit, tabla, percussion, concertina, whistles & vocals.

Cheyenne’s trio, the North Atlantic Project (harp, dobro, bass, formally the North Atlantic Project), recently released their debut CD – Some Part of Something:  “flawless coming together of cross-genre, mixed influence, multicultural music… sublimely melodic and intensely gorgeous” (Folkwords). The trio fuses bluegrass, Appalachian, and Scottish textures in a unique instrument combination.

Cheyenne’s solo CD, Parallel Latitudes, is an all harp-lead collection of Scottish and contemporary tunes accompanied by dobro, tabla, cello, banjo, fiddle and percussion (see reviews and music sections!).   Her duo with cellist and Scots singer Seylan Baxter in 2007 released the album 2:forty, and have since toured in the US, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and Spain and extensively throughout the United Kingdom. Most recently, they toured in Spain with the Spanish group Acetre.

Cheyenne gained an Honours degree in Scottish music from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow in 2006, where she had a full scholarship from the Associated Board of Music. In November of 2009, she was awarded an MSc in Scottish Ethnology from the University of Edinburgh. The research-based masters degree allowed her to carry out fieldwork in never-before studied areas of the Scottish harp. She researched the development in the construction of the Scottish harp since its revival in the 1930s through to today’s modern builders.

Cheyenne is in high demand as a harp tutor on both sides of the Atlantic, having taught for the Ohio Scottish Arts School, Common Ground on the Hill, and the Washington Area Folk Harp Society (all in the US), and the Gaelic College at St Ann’s in Cape Breton. She travels regularly to teach in the Netherlands, Germany and northern Europe.  In Scotland she maintains a full rota of private students as well as teaching for the Edinburgh International Harp Festival, Clarsach Society events, and Feis across the country (Gaelic music festivals). She has re-founded and is past convenor of the Glasgow Branch of the Clarsach Society and is involved in running monthly harp workshops in Glasgow.

Cheyenne’s playing style is characteristically free and creative, making much use of improvisation and contrasting textures.

“…Consummate skill… stunning self-penned tunes… Cheyenne displays that envied emphathy with both instrument and music that few achieve” – Folkwords
“A musical force to be reckoned with as well as a harpist of great dexterity”  -Folking.com
“Creative and atmopheric modern use of the harp… energetic elements balanced aplenty with elegance and sensitivity” -Living Tradition