harp / modern composition · harp
Contact me: mariedassel.official@gmail.com · Management: label@calmingpot.com
Instagram: @mariedassel
Performs rarely and only in intimate rooms across Europe: small halls, back rooms, someone's front parlour. Nothing large, nothing ticketed widely. For house-concert enquiries, write.
My path to music was anything but conventional. I trained as a lawyer, choosing a career for its stability rather than its creativity, while music stayed quietly present in the background of my life.
My family never encouraged music as a serious path, and there was no obvious route laid out for me. After finishing law school, I began recording my own compositions anyway, making my own way into music when no conventional one existed.
Working with the harp, I create intimate, atmospheric pieces rooted in contemporary and neoclassical music: delicate melodies, spacious textures and real emotional depth, made for stillness, reflection and a little escape. Music was never simply a career I chose. It's the one path I refused to give up on.
In the lineage of Impressionist water-music · folk modal singing · field recordings · early music
This is my most recent album, and the most mature of them all. I'm genuinely excited to share it with you. It's simple, but it captures some of the happiest moments of my recent years. Let me know how you feel once you've listened.
An abstract, neo classical piece, inspired by gardens I visited in London. I was camping just outside the city, in the New Forest, contemplating life. This record is my full acceptance.
Come Back is my personal return to nature. I tried, one more time, to just listen and observe rather than ask, comment, and endlessly try to perfect the piece. It took patience, not judging, and loving what was already around me. It became my introduction to spring in full bloom.
The Woodmaker is really the preludium to The Carousel, even though it was released after it. There are some very personal notes hidden in this one. See if you can relate.
This one had to wait almost twelve months to be released. It wasn't an easy record for me. I was in Europe, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, trying to find my way out. I composed it to find the light again.
After such a warm reception for the first two records, Visions came next. It's inspired by winter. Listen closely and you'll hear some melodies fall like snowflakes. I'd love to know how it feels to you.
This one started humbly. I'm not sure where from exactly, but the melody had been living in my heart since childhood, long before I knew what to do with it. Then I visited Costa Rica, and suddenly I knew this album belonged to that trip: the smell, the birds, all of it.
I actually composed the piece in early 2011. It took me ten years to publish it. Can you believe that?
Laurie was like a second part, a continuation of Stranger. I love embracing nature in my music. I strongly believe we cannot be separated from it, that we are all part of one ecosystem, and my melodies are simply my natural response, a conversation with mother nature.
One harp, and as little else as I can get away with.
