Harpist Siobhán Brady is set to beat her own record as she prepares to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and perform a harp concert from nearly 20,000 feet.
The Limerick woman previously broke the record for highest harp concert in 2018 at Singla Pass, India, at over 16,000 feet.
She is due to beat this record in July as she and a team of 19 others climb to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro to perform again.
Ms Brady told Moncrieff she must perform for over 20 minutes at the glaciers to qualify for a Guinness World Record.
“I asked Guinness World Records when I met them, and they said they didn't know where that rule came from - but we have to follow it,” she said.
Ms Brady and her fellow climbers will carry a harp weighing 11 kilograms in a large box up the mountain to its summit, walking for five to seven days.
The climbers have been receiving training from fitness instructor Stephen Lawlor including monthly hikes and “extremely difficult” online challenges.
She said a group of local Sherpas will carry another harp along a safer route in case anything happens to the original instrument.
Ms Brady said the weather conditions at Mount Kilimanjaro might compromise the harp: “Kilimanjaro starts at a rain forest and then ends on a glacier, so it's going to be a dramatic change and the difference might do something to the wood, and it's going to be hard to keep the tuning.”
The harpist was told the summit will likely be minus 20-degree wind chills, so she plans to bring several hand warmers to use in between songs.
Cystic fibrosis
Ms Brady will perform special compositions written by Irish composers, as well as ‘Little Bird’ by Ed Sheeran.
They will play this song as it has a “strong connection” to Triona Priestley, a cystic fibrosis patient who died from the disease in 2014.
Ms Brady is climbing the mountain with CF patient Caroline Heffernan to raise money for charities that support those with the disease. They have raised €37,000 of their €100,000 goal so far.
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