For Saturday’s song of the day, I chose this wonderfully cross-cultural piece by Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita, from their album Soar. Catrin Finch is a Welsh classical harpist, and Seckou Keita is a Senegalese kora player. They have gained a lot of recognition as a duo in the UK. This piece opens with an excerpt from Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and then goes into Baisso, a Senegalese piece of music that is traditionally played on kora to people of high status such as royalty.
Tag: Catrin Finch
Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita – “Chaminuka”.
Hi guys! 🙂
Last May, Welsh harpist Catrin Finch and Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita, a duo already well-established on the British folk scene, released their latest album called Echoes. I don’t think I’ve shared anything from this album so far, despite having featured quite a few songs from their previous albums. “Chaminuka” is a tribute to the late Zimbabwean mbira player, Chartwell Dutiro, who passed away in 2019. In case you don’t know what mbira is (I definitely did not prior to reading about this album), it’s an African, particularly Zimbabwean I believe, percussion instrument, also known as thumb piano. The title of this song refers to Chaminuka, who is an ancestor of Shona people and I believe he was some sort of prophet or a religious figure.
Catrin Finch – “Clear Sky”.
Hey guys! 🙂
For today I chose a really beautiful piece performed by the Welsh classical harpist Catrin Finch. It comes from her album Tides, which contains her self-composed material. This particular piece was inspired by a poem of the same name written by Giuseppe Ungaretti during WWI.
Catrin Finch ft. Seckou Keita – “Tabadabang”.
Hiya people! 🙂
Today I also have for you a piece that features harp and that comes from an album released this year, in May more exactly. This is an album by Welsh harpist Catrin Finch and Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita, and it is called Echo. The duo has collaborated for uite some time now, releasing several albums and winning awards together, and I’ve already shared several of their earlier pieces on here. This one is actually a lyrical song. From what I’ve read, it was written by Seckou, and is about childhood, or more exactly the experience of family, adventures and innocence during childhood.
Catrin Finch – “Storm Front”.
Hey people! 🙂
Today I thought I’d share another piece from Catrin Finch’s album of solely original material called Tide. Although Catrin Finch is primarily a harpist, she is also a pianist, and piano is the instrument whichh we’ll hear in this composition, on which she is also accompanied by strings.
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 – “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 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.
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