CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
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Karen Tweed: With Love from Orkney
Master musician sketches out compelling visual landscapes
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KAREN TWEED is perhaps best known as a top-drawer accordionist — take a listen to her on YouTube if you’re not familiar with her work — whose technical brilliance extracts a lyricism and layered tonalities, often crossing over into the realm of classical music rarely associated with the instrument.
But there’s a lesser-known string to Tweed’s bow. Her passion for sketching has its roots in the art education she received in the 1980s at Leeds School of Arts.
After a period of island-hopping, Tweed settled permanently on Orkney in 2018, the year her father passed away. He was her mentor and she found solace in nature and observing its ephemeral manifestations: “Nature in Orkney is also a powerful healer,” she says.
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