Local girl Shelley Musker Turner played the harp as a child and only started playing again last Christmas, but now she will be play her first show with international band Calan at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on Thursday.

Shelley, from Ffair Rhos, has been chosen to play harp for folk band Calan following auditions and a nationwide search for the band’s new harpist.

Shell won against stiff competition and during the second round of auditions she impressed the band and their management with her innate musical skill and traditional approach to the music.

The remarkable thing is that she learnt the harp as a child and then gave up playing and only took up the instrument seriously again last Christmas.

Shelley, 22, a former student at Coleg Ceredigion, was spotted by another musician while she was busking in Cardiff.

The musician, Jordan Price Williams, who has played with many major players himself, asked Shell if she was aware that Calan were auditioning for a new harpist.

Thinking she would not even be considered or get passed the first round, she thought ‘What’s there to lose? They can only say no’.

So she applied and was brought in for the second round of auditions before then being invited for what she thought was an interview and another audition. However, after speaking with Calan’s manager, Huw Williams, for 15 minutes she was told she had the job.

Shelley will be clocking up a lot of air miles in the future, but she is looking forward to playing her first few numbers with Calan in her own local area with her own local harp made by Telynau Teifi of Llandysul.

Read the full story in this week’s Cambrian News, on sale tomorrow