Global

Catrin Finch and Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita

Here at Frusion we're delighted to be working in collaboration with Theatr Mwldan management for this truly wonderful musical experience, pure aural joy! .. please note we can accept enquiries for most territories but not Benelux.
Also taking enquiries for Seckou Keita all territories except Benelux

Welsh harpist Catrin Finch and Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita continue to amaze and astound in equal measure. Winners of the internationally prestigious fRoots' Critics Poll Album of the Year 2013, Songlines' Best Cross-Cultural Collaboration Award 2014 and two nominations for the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2014 (Best Duo and Best Traditional Track), plus abundant four and five-star reviews from UK and International press - the duo have achieved considerable critical and public acclaim for a collaboration that is barely 18 months old, and one which led The Guardian's Robin Denselow to describe their live London Debut at Bush Hall in May 2014 as "...one of the classic concerts of the year....magnificent ***** ".

Their album Clychau Dibon has topped the Amazon World Music charts and the pair have spent the summer of 2014 on the festival circuit with gigs including WOMAD, Cambridge Folk Festival, Shambala and Festival Interceltique, Lorient where they double billed with Anoushka Shankar.

From Wales, Catrin Finch, a celebrated classical harpist, has won accolades the world over for her virtuosic performances with some of the world's finest orchestras. A fearless performer, Catrin has also worked with Malian kora player Toumani Diabaté, and Colombian band Cimarrón, and switches from Bach's Goldberg Variations to traditional folk or Colombian joropo music with ease.

Born into the world-famous royal Keita and griot Cissokho families, Seckou Keita from the Casamance area of Senegal has earned worldwide acclaim for his ground-breaking kora playing, and in addition to his solo career, has played with his uncle Solo Cissokho and Guinean master djembe player Mamady Keita, in addition to appearing with both Salif Keita and Youssou N'Dour.

The success of Catrin and Seckou's debut album and their exhilarating live performances is attributed to the pair's innate understanding and an infectious onstage chemistry. Despite Catrin coming from a classical background and Seckou unable to read music, they've found a huge amount of common ground and draw on their diverse traditions and transform them with remarkable synergy; Mandinka rhythms mix effortlessly with Welsh tunes, with hypnotic improvisations from both in a set which is at once exhilarating and mesmerising. Impossible to pigeon-hole, their music blurs the boundaries between world music, classical, folk and traditional genres.

Their debut album Clychau Dibon has attracted huge interest and a clutch of 4 and 5 star reviews from music Industry press with UNCUT Maga-zine's Neil Spencer describing it as "intricate, ethereal and entrancing, an elaborate pas-de-deux... remarkable", "a sublime duo of two artists who are masters of their instruments... musicality and architecture at work" - Simon Broughton, London Evening Standard, and "remarkable... an elegant, gently exquisite set" - Robin Denselow, The Guardian.

The harp occupies a vital place in the incredibly rich cultures of both West Africa and Wales, and both nations share a centuries-old bardic tradition of intricate oral history, expressed through music, song and verse. The remarkable affinities between the harp and the kora as well as the Welsh and West African cultures from which they have emerged are fused on their award winning debut album Clychau Dibon into a single intensely inspiring river of music.

Email me: , or call +44(0) 7791 699889 to book.
Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita