Elizabeth McNulty – sensational harpist in the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra – is one of our star soloists as we throw a show-stopping celebration for Mozart’s 268^th birthday later this month. We caught up with her to chat about all the preparations, her journey to joining the Orchestra and much more!

The harp has enjoyed a place at the heart of Irish culture and history for many centuries – Irish kings had their own personal harpists and today the harp symbol remains emblazoned on everything from passports to pints (of Guinness).

For Elizabeth McNulty, it was seeing the harp on the back of coins during childhood visits to her father’s family in Ireland that inspired her to take up the instrument herself. The desire was fuelled further when she spotted an Irish harp in a shop window, and by family visits to the ballet to see performances of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker and Swan Lake.

“I just always knew I wanted to play; I was absolutely determined,” she recalls. “I told all my friends at school I was going to play the harp, even when I wasn’t sure I necessarily would. My mum got me put on a waiting list with the local music service [in Kent where Elizabeth grew up], because they had two harps to hire – and I had to wait for two years before having lessons because the harps they had were already out. So I finally had my first harp lesson when I was nine. And it was the best thing ever!”

At the age of 11, she graduated from the trad harp sized instrument she had begun learning on to her first full-size instrument, bought new for her by her parents. “It was really exciting – I still remember the day,” she smiles.

That passion for the instrument has endured, with Elizabeth studying at Trinity Laban – where she was awarded a Leverhulme Scholarship – after taking a music degree at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has also forged a busy recitalist, chamber and orchestral career, and teaches the next generation of young harpists.

She was living and working in London (where she played with the Kantanti Ensemble) when the Principal Harp position in the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra became available in 2016. “Harp jobs in orchestras rarely come up,” she explains. “You’ll look on the internet and it will be ‘oh there’s one in the USA, one in Asia’. I saw it and got excited and applied and I was really overjoyed when I was offered a trial.”

Auditioning was the first time she had played in the city. In fact, she had only visited Liverpool once before, on a family trip to the docks when she was a child.

“When I came, I stayed on the Wirral for the first week,” Elizabeth recalls. “The person I was staying with worked for the Orchestra, so I followed her in in the car and we came through the Birkenhead Tunnel. I remember coming out and seeing these beautiful buildings and just thinking – wow, this is Liverpool! It’s so beautiful here in the Georgian Quarter. One of the things I really love, you always get a wonderful sunset. Whatever the weather is, there’s always a really interesting sky. I was living in London before – and I still can’t get over how you can live 10 minutes away from work!”

Eight years on, she is starting 2024 in a starring role – playing Mozart’s Concerto for Flute, Harp and Orchestra with Cormac Henry as part of an all-Amadeus programme to mark the composer’s birthday.

It’s a piece she’s performed before, although not here in Liverpool. “Each time you come back to a piece you might decide to do things a bit differently to the time before, whether that’s interpretational or technical or fingering perhaps,” she says of her preparation for the concert. “Even this time around now, there’s a few different things in the preparation I’ll be trying out. It’s always good to try and look at it in a new way to keep things fresh. Or as you develop as a musician, you notice new things in a piece. And you learn from each performance.”

“But what’s nice is that Cormac and I have performed chamber music before a few times, so I guess you learn about each other’s playing a little more than when you’re in an orchestra. Because when you’re playing in an orchestra you’re listening to a whole wall of sound. But when you’re doing a chamber piece, is when you really get to see how someone works musically.”

Despite being such a prolific composer, the concerto was the only harp piece Mozart ever wrote. And the 246-year-old work remains a popular part of the canon – named as one of Classic FM’s top 10 pieces for harp. While it’s a great piece in great company, it turns out Elizabeth also has a soft spot for a work that doesn’t make the list – and would love to perform it for Liverpool audiences one day.

She reveals: “I’ve only had the chance to play it once, but I love the Ginastera Harp Concerto – every harpist will say they love it. It’s really meaty. It’s lyrical but percussive and has all those elements that a harp can do.”