Hurdy-gurdy player Laurie Rousseau will entertain with her highly complex instrument at this month’s Wiscasset Art Walk from 4-7 p.m. Thursday, July 25.

According to Rousseau, of Wiscasset, a hurdy-gurdy has components of the violin, guitar, piano and bagpipe.

Musician Laurie Rousseau, in costume, plays hurdy-gurdy during the June Wiscasset Art Walk. Bob Bond photo

Rousseau had been playing early music for almost two decades when she first heard the hurdy-gurdy while listening to some recorded early music. Through a process of elimination, she determined that the unfamiliar sound was a hurdy-gurdy. Fascinated by its history dating back to the 14th century, and popular in the 18th century court of Louis XV, she ordered an Elizabethan model for herself.

All hurdy-gurdys are custom made, as was Rousseau’s concert model.

“It came with no instructions,” she said in a prepared release. Nor are there hurdy-gurdy repair services. So, Rousseau taught herself to play, tune and repair.

Rousseau said that hurdy-gurdy is meant to be a melody instrument and has four drone strings, which play a single note similarly to a bagpipe. There are two melody strings, and the musician can play chords, sharps and flats. The instrument has a neck and pegs like a guitar and a keyboard like a piano. There’s also something rubbing the strings, like a violin, but in the case of a hurdy-gurdy, it’s a hand-cranked wheel instead of a bow.

In addition to putting all these components together to create music, another challenge for the hurdy-gurdy musician is tuning. It can take up to one and a half hours to tune before a performance, Rousseau said, and must be tuned during performance as well. The instrument is also sensitive to changes in weather.

From about 1992–2012, Rousseau played hurdy-gurdy at Renaissance fairs and at Celtic music events with The Roses, an early and traditional music band specializing in instrumental music of the 16th century.

“The hurdy-gurdy added a new dimension,” she said.

She has also played with a Baroque quartet in Nova Scotia and had a regular gig at a house museum there. The hurdy-gurdy “is very suited to Breton music,” she said.

Rousseau performed at the Wiscasset Art Walk in June and will continue to do so for the 2024 season — July 25, Aug. 29 and Sept. 26.

“I’m so happy to be a hurdy-gurdy player,” Rousseau said. “It’s very enjoyable to share the experience of discovery when people hear it for the first time.”

Additional upcoming art walk features include LamboLaw jazz duo, the Long Branch Boys, the fine art of dueling, and Woodfield Farm horse and wagon rides around the village. For more information, visit wiscassetartwalk.org or email to wiscassetartwalk@gmail.com.