Harp music: Mia Westlund grew up in southern Dalarna, among mills and deep forests. She received piano and singing lessons via the municipal music school, by Eva Ahlin, and via the music program at the high school, she received harp lessons from Elisabet Brogeby. After that, she is self-taught in music and recording.
Through a collaboration with Leader + Nedre Dalälven, she got the chance to record the album "Thankyou O'Carolan". The material consisted largely of what she learned during her apprenticeship, a lot of Irish tunes and much of Turlough O'Carolan, Ireland's national composer. He played a major role during her apprenticeship and was dedicated to the title, as a thank you to all the predecessors in harp music.
After high school, she played some years with Dalälvorna, where the magic of the Nordic shielings was mixed with medieval tones and Japanese film music. There were many enchanting gigs.
This was mixed with many freelance gigs, but dry repertoire rehearsals and the pressure of too well or too poorly paid gigs led to the magic of the music dying out. It was time to take a step back. Searching for magic again, that enchantment. For a time now she played only for her own ears, only what she herself liked, played for the trees and the birds, for the fire and the waves. Slowly, the joy of music began to return.
One late summer, she started the project to record a record with medieval music, and in 2015, the album "Medieval Melodies" was ready for release. In connection with that, she also finally found the artist name she had been looking for all these years, and Miriavyn came into the world.
In 2019, "Blue Magic" came out, an album with self-written music, and with a lot of magic between the notes. And the song "Moria" reached the radio, it was in fact written very early, during the first years at the municipal music school. Listen on Spotify!
During the Corona Pandemic, Miriavyn started to offer recording services at Soundbetter, and has by now participated on several recordings with harp and vocals. And by 2021 a collaboration was formed with Dream Alliance, to make cozy videos for Youtube, starting with about two hours of medieval relax music.
Artist: When was the first chalk held in the hand? We start instead at high school, when Mia received a request from the Music School in Hedemora to paint three paintings there. Three became more, and soon several music teachers had their instruments framed together with a dragon and a candle. This grew into a series of paintings that were perfect as birthday gifts for those who already have everything, as thank-you gifts, and gifts to loved ones. A dragon, a candle, and as many personal interests as one could come up with was accommodated in fine-tuned still lifes.
There were many orders for paintings and when Mia barely painted anything between the orders, each painting became a big step forward. But the biggest steps were taken when Mia started with landscape painting and fantastic works with sparkling water and sun haze in deep forests appeared. The acrylic paint also had to leave room for an exploration of oil paint and the magic began to move with the brushstrokes.
In 2019, she started participating in Konstrundan, a local art exhibition, in Avesta and became, at least it felt like it, a real artist. This was followed up with more exhibitions, both locally and in Stockholm. Take a look in the art gallery!
