One of Scotland’s leading harpists has dedicated her new album to the hero hand surgeon who helped save her career.
Helensburgh based Pippa Reid-Foster, who has worked with The Royal National Mòd, singer Siobhan Wilsonand can count legends of classical music Philip Glass and Max Richter among her biggest supporters, snapped the ligaments in her wrist while surfing.
She suffered excruciating pain and battled symptoms playing for two years before doctors found the cause of the problem using an ultrasound after all previous tests had failed.
Plucky Pippa was referred to Dr Iain McGraw, Consultant Hand and Orthopaedic Trauma Surgeon with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde based at the Royal Alexandra hospital, who agreed to carry out a rare and delicate operation which could have left her unable to use her hands for good if it didn’t work.
She said: “I love the sea and it wasn’t too long after my first album Driftwood Harp came out and I was out surfing one day near Machrihanish when I just got slammed and lost control. It hurt like Hell at the time, but I figured it must have been a sprain or something.
“But after weeks turned into months and months turned into years I just knew something was wrong. I couldn’t play without painkillers, my fingers weren’t working properly, for a musician who plays and teaches for a living it was just terrifying.
“I went to see a few specialists and they were like, ‘Oh it’s just your hypermobility, there’s nothing wrong’. But you know there’s something wrong, you know your own body.
“So I managed to get them to look further into it with X-rays, MRIs and I went for an ultrasound and that finally showed a mass of scar tissue on my wrists and they found I’d actually snapped my ligament. That’s why it was so painful and I couldn’t move my fingers properly.”
The relief she had knowing that people at last fully understood what she had been going through brought her to a crossroads that could have ended her playing days forever.
“They put me in touch with one of the leading hand surgeons in the UK, Dr McGraw, and they told me what they could do. He said we only perform one or two of these on a patient in the UK in a year.
“Because of my career and what I do, he said it would be best to try but warned it was 50-50 as to whether it would work or not. He was very honest and said ‘you could lose the movement in your wrist completely and you may not be able to play.
“So it was a massive risk.”
The emotional toll from the incident in 2017 and long term recovery was later to help inspire some of the tracks in her new album, Undercurrents, which comes out on Friday (September 6).
She said: “My head was all over the place, I gained a lot – a lot – of extra weight because I was just comfort-eating all the time. I mean I was gigging right up until the operation, but I was in a terrible place emotionally. I didn’t know if I was coming or going.
“It was a few weeks after the operation when I could move my fingers, I had numbness and I didn’t know if that would go away. That was in December 2019, then we went straight into lockdown, and that inspired most of this album.
“I couldn’t play for three months, I couldn’t drive, and then I started seeing the physio who said for me the best physio for me was just playing the harp.
“So I started gigging slowly again. My mum plays the violin so she came along to support me just in case it was a disaster and I couldn’t play properly and she could just play and cover if needed, but thankfully it never came to that.”
During her recovery she approached Philip Glass, Max Richter and Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres who all immediately agreed to let their include their works on her album.
“I’m so grateful,” she said, “Their music helped me through. Perhaps unsurprisingly the writing for the album is also inspired not just by my experiences of almost losing my career, but water too. I don’t surf anymore, I can’t risk it, but I do wild swim and nature helped me through. Both physically and emotionally.
“I simply cannot thank Dr McGraw and everyone else involved enough. This album only happened because of their skill and belief that mine was a musical career worth saving. But only now can we find out if Undercurrents will sink or swim.”
Hailing from the town of Helensburgh situated at the mouth of the Gareloch on the north side of Scotland’s Firth of Clyde, Pippa Reid-Foster is an innovative contemporary Scottish harp player. A graduate of the prestigious Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, she combines a minimal compositional style with strong references to her Scottish roots and coastal upbringing. Pippa is not only an accomplished performer and composer but is also passionate about passing on her skills to a new generation of musicians and composers. She has adjudicated at the The Royal National Mòd, taught for the Edinburgh International Harp Festival, was nominated for Tutor of the Year at the MG Alba Scots Traditional Music Awards, was a finalist in the Princess Margaret of the Isles Memorial Prize for Senior Clarsach and a quarter finalist in the Dutch World Harp competition. She released her first album ‘Driftwood Harp’ in December 2016, exploring the rich folklore, myths and history of the Argyll area. She returns in September with the highly anticipated ‘Undercurrents’, a contemporary album of original works and interpretations, ahead of a series of live shows and collaborative projects with other artists and creative talents.
Artist website: https://pippareidfoster.com
Single title: Undercurrents
Album title: Undercurrents
Release Date: 06/09/2024
Single artist: Pippa Reid Foster
Single duration: 4:41
Writers: Pippa Reid Foster
Publishers: PRS / MCPS
Explicit?: No
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