Gilchrist and Co. Bring Some International Flavor to Holliston

Backed by a cello, upright bass and fiddle, harpist Maeve Gilchrist delivered her unique brand of jazz, blues, Irish and folk music to an enthralled crowd at the 's 1728 Coffee House Saturday night.

Dressed in a black jacket, red tank top and black skirt with stockings, Gilchrist took the stage with the rest of her quartet: upright bassist Aidan O’Donnell, fiddle player Duncan Wickel and cellist Daniel Paine. The foursome played to benefit the Appalachian Book Project, which provides gently-read children’s books to impoverished Appalachian schools as well as to other child programs in the region.

Gilchrist has toured Europe and America and played for Scottish Parliament. Next month, she and the band will tour through England, Scotland and Germany before returning home to Massachusetts. A graduate of the Berklee College of Music, Gilchrist lives and tours out of Boston and can most often be found at the legendary Club Passim in Cambridge's Harvard Square.

Raised in Edinburgh, Scotland by an Irish mother and Scottish father, Gilchrist grew up listening to traditional folk music. In her preteen and early teen years, she studied classical piano, clarsach (Celtic harp) and vocals at the City of Edinburgh Music School and performed at prestigious events like the Celtic Connections Festival and the International Edinburgh Harp Festival.

“I grew up in a fairly traditional household in Scotland,” Gilchrist said. “We just kind of grew up with musicians and dancers all the time. At 10, I studied at Edinburgh Music School in classical piano.”

Gilchrist went on to explain her father’s vinyl record collection, discussing his wide variety of tastes and how that translated to her. She got a scholarship to study jazz and world music at Berklee at age 17 and, though she spent time in New York and Virginia after graduating in 2007, she likes the appeal of Boston more.

In addition to the piano, Gilchrist plays the clarsach, which adjusts by levers just above the fingering positions. The classical harp, meanwhile, adjusts by a half-step via a pedal.

The melding of Gilchrist's varied musical schooling and her bandmates' eclectic talents have produced a inimitable sound.

“We all come from different backgrounds but our improvisation is kind of the same,” said O’Donnell, who is from Glasgow, Scotland. “(Gilchrist) writes really interesting music. There’s a lot of space for everyone to do the right thing. It’s really interesting to see her and the voices of the different players come together.”

“It’s fantastic. It’s really great to be part of a project that really stands out," said Wickel, who is from North Carolina. "Being traditional and creative is really exciting."

In Saturday's show, the quartet played original jazz with repeating melodies and standard styles. For her brother's birthday, Gilchrist wrote a tune called “The Legend of the Ear.”

For some songs, she did scat singing, but with the docile tones of doo-wop. A song about a Scottish landscape had an extended fiddle solo and after the first few songs, Wickel exited the stage followed after the next song by Paine. Gilchrist and O'Donnell then played a duet before Wickle and Paine returned later in the set.

“I think (Gilchrist) is very clever. I think she takes the harp to new places," said audience member Nancy O’Neill said during intermission. "She’s very creative. It’s clearly the right instrument for her. I mean, she’s singing and she’s playing the harp. It’s a very nice experience, a very different harp experience."

The 1728 Coffee House, named after the year the church was founded, had tables with coffees and teas, different entrees, and desserts. The intermission saw the sale of drinks and plates skyrocket to help fund this event’s decided charity.

After the break, the quartet played a piece without vocals, a somber pastiche that swayed with thruming bass and simple dynamics. That was followed by a song with more mellowed scat with a mimicked jugband rhythm. Still another number used the words of well-known Scottish poet Robert Burns as lyrics to accompany hanging bass and fiddle whole notes. A standing ovation brought them back for an encore, for which they played a song about death in autumn.

“It was really fun. It was great to play acoustic. People were really attentive, which was nice,” said Wickel, standing in a receiving line with O'Donnell and Paine. Meanwhile, Gilchrist sat at a table near the stage, selling her records and signing autographs.

Her new record “Song of Delight” is coming out on Adventure Music Records on May 15 and a release party will be held at Club Passim. Much of the 1728 Coffee House’s set will be on the new album.