Catrin Finch ft. Seckou Keita – “Genedigaeth Koring-bato” (Genesis of the Kora).

   Hiya people! 🙂 

   I’ve already shared several pieces played by Catrin Finch with you, including also several ones that are part of her collaboration withh the Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita. I don’t know about Senegal, but on the Welsh/British folk music scene, they are definitely getting a lot of attention and appreciation. I really like to listen to their music, it’s amazing to hear harp and kora play together, and, as I think I said before, I’d never heard of kora until I first heard Seckou Keita play it. 

   Before this project was even a thing, Catrin Finch was on a tour together with another kora player called Toumani Diabate, and that is what was the inspiration for the collaboration between and Seckou Keita. This piece is the opening one on their debut album Clychau Dibon, and it’s dedicated to Toumani Diabate, acknowledging his part in the formation of this duo. The piece is a blend of both Welsh and Senegalese/African folk melodies woven together, out of the Welsh ones I can recognise Beth Yw’r Haf i Mi (What is the Summer to Me). 

Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita – “Hinna-Djulo”.

Hi people!

The piece I want to share with you today comes from this amazing Welsh-Senegalese duo’s latest album called Soar which I really love. Catrin is a very versatile Welsh Celtic harpist, and Seckou Keita is a kora player, the first kora player whom I ever heard playing this instrument and who made me realise that I like it a lot. Apparently, despite Hinna-Djulo was released on their latest album in 2018, this piece is older than that, but only when working on Soar did they feel that it was ready to be shown. I think it’s interesting because to me this piece feels so perfect that it totally makes sense that they must have been polishing it for ages to make it sound the way it does. Catrin’s harp is incredible here.

Catrin Finch ft. Seckou Keita – “Hinna-Djulo”.

Catrin Finch ft. Seckou Keita – “Yama Ba”.

Hey people! 🙂

I’ve shared with you a few pieces played by Catrin Finch already, but I think only one that she played with collaboration with Seckou Keita. They have been working together for quite a couple years now, so I thought I’d share something else, from their album called Soar. Catrin Finch, as you may remember, is a Welsh harpist, whereas Seckou Keita is a Senegalese kora player. I’d never heard what kora sounds like before I first heard their music together, and I really like the way these instruments sound together and complement each other.

Catrin Finch – “Drifting”.

Hey guys! 🙂

I’ve shared some music, original and not, from this Welsh harpist a couple times before. But harp is not the only instrument she can play, as she also plays piano, and I remember reading somewhere that she said that piano is like a harp lying down, which sounds like quite an accurate way to put it indeed. This is her original piece and I really love how smooth it is.

Catrin Finch – “Aurora”.

Hey guys! 🙂

Today I’m sharing with you a very beautiful piece from Welsh harpist Catrin Finch, whose music I’ve already shared with you a few times before, also some in collaboration with Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita. I’m sharing this particular piece with you because that’s what I woke up to today, and it was such a great feeling to listen to it somewhere between the real world and Dreamland.

Catrin Finch “Aria Mit 30 Veränderungen, BWV 988 “Goldberg Variations”, Variation 3″.

Hey people! 🙂

Let’s listen to some Baroque music today, in the arrangement of great Welsh harpist Catrin Finch whose music I’ve shared here a few times already. It is a part of composition by Johann Sebastian Bach, which he created for count Herman Karl von Keyserling, originally to be played on harpsichord. Interestingly, the piece was meant to cure the count’s insomnia. It was played to him by his musician, who was at the same time Bach’s student – Johann Gottlieb Goldberg – hence it’s called “Goldberg’s Variations”. I’m not particularly well acquainted with Baroque music, but I really like how this sounds onharp, and I thought we’d have a listen to the variation no. 3.

Song of the day (15th October) – Catrin Finch – “Migration”.

Since in the previous post I shared Changing Tides by Catrin Finch, I decided to share one more track from the same album by her (the album is called Tides). It’s also richly multiinstrumental as you can hear, but with harp having a prominent place in it. The atmosphere of this piece is very much different though. Which one do you like more? I can’t decide!

Song of the day (14th October) – Catrin Finch – “Changing Tides”.

Here is another harpist – Catrin Finch from Wales – whose music I had previously shared with you, including some that she has created in collaboration with the kora player Seckou Keita. I think this is an evocative piece with interesting instrumentation, pleasant to listen to, and I hope you’ll find it enjoyable too. 🙂

Catrin Finch – Lisa Lân (Fair Lisa).

Hi! 🙂

Another tune from Catrin Finch I want to share with you. It’s just so stunningly beautiful. Not so long ago, I showed you the same song performed by the band Alaw and my current music crush, Gwilym Bowen Rhys. That one was a song, not an instrumental, so if you haven’t seen it before, you can check out, as well as the lyrics

here

Catrin Finch’s version is a harp solo arrangement of this traditional Welsh love song and it’s very creative and beautiful and relaxing and just so sooo beautiful it makes my brain melting and falling to pieces almost as much as Gwilym’s version.

Here it is:

Catrin Finch ft. Seckou Keita – “Clarach”.

Hi guys! 🙂

Today I have an instrumental for you. Something extremely powerful, brilliant and charismatic.

I love Catrin Finch. It’s pretty easy to guess if you know that Finch is a harpist, because I love harp, any kind of harp, and I love Welsh music, and you can find plenty of Welsh inspirations in her music, because she lives in Wales. Catrin Finch is a really good and widely known harpist, just the fact that the first time I’ve heard about her was in Polish public radio, not in Welsh BBC station or online. And I naturally liked her music immediately. She’s a really good and skilled harpist and arranger. She was taught by very good harpists, like Elinor Bennett (who is actually her mother in law now) and started to learn to play harp at quite an early age, don’t know now when exactly, but as a child. Her mum is German, and her dad is English, but she is a fluent Welsh-speaker. She and her husband own a studio near Cardiff, which is actually an old chapel, and lots of great artists recorded their music there.

The piece I want to show you – “Clarach” – is a collaboration between Finch and Seckou Keita. Seckou Keita is from Senegal and he plays kora (have you ever heard about this instrument? I haven’t) and is also a drummer. Clarach, if you don’t know and are curious, is the name of te river near Aberystwyth in Wales.