CATRIN FINCH & AOIFE Ní bhriain A MWLDAN PRODUCTION / CYNHYRCHIAD Y MWLDAN

6/ MARKETING POINTS

• Double You, Catrin and Aoife's debut album as a duo, features an exquisite collection of new compositions that draw inspiration from various genres, taking listeners on a captivating journey on the wings of the bees across the Irish Sea and inspired by the cultures of their home countries.
• Running through their stories – as individual creatives, remarkable women, and now as an inspirational duo – are universal themes of identity, self-belief and the courage to find yourself and follow your own path.
• Both Catrin and Aoife are incredible virtuoso musicians of their respective instruments, who started young and trained hard and with great dedication to achieve the highest world class standards of their art. Both went through rigorous classical training and grounded their careers in the classical world.
• Born in Dublin to a family of musicians, Aoife Ní Bhriain has established herself as a richly versatile musician, expert in both classical and folk music.
• Aoife’s father Mick O’Brien is one of Ireland’s leading uilleann pipe players. Her mother Fidelma is a music teacher who comes from a large family of Irish dancers and musicians. Her paternal grandfather was the renowned accordionist ‘Dinny’ O’Brien, her uncle the equally famous tin-whistle virtuoso ‘Donncha’ O’Brien. Her maternal granddad Don played drums in Fintan Lalor Pipe Band of Dublin; pretty much every cousin was born with a musical instrument in their hand. Her maternal aunt Gráinne was head of the CLRG, the organisation that oversees the commission style of Irish dancing. “I had it on both sides,” says Aoife, “there was no escape.”
• Aoife has excelled in both classical music and Irish traditional music domains, working with leading orchestras (the Royal Philharmonic, the Royal Chamber Orchestra, Stargaze Ensemble, Concorde Ensemble, Crash Ensemble, RTÉ Symphony Orchestra, Dublin City Chamber Orchestra and more), whilst also starring in Riverdance, winning the All Ireland Fiddle championships seven times, The Sean Ó Riada Gold Medal (2010), collaborating with maestros of the trad scene like Martin Hayes and breathing new life into the old trad tunes collected by the mid-19th century revivalist Canon Goodman as part of The Goodman Trio, with her father Mick and flautist Emer Maycock.
• Catrin Finch is one of the world’s greatest harpists and has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic, the Boston Pops, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and the English Chamber Orchestra.
• Catrin has performed in every continent except Antarctica and has graced the stages of A-list classical music festivals, including Salzburg, Edinburgh, Spoleto and MDR Musiksommer in Leipzig Her collaborations with Bryn Terfel, Sir James Galway, Julian Lloyd Webber and composer Karl Jenkins have appeared on Universal Records, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI and Sony Classical.
• Catrin was nominated for a Classical Brit Award in 2004 and later won Germany’s Echo Klassik Award. Her solo harp rendition of Bach’s Goldberg Variations (2009) and Blessing, the album she made with with John Rutter (2012) both went straight to the top of the UK Classical charts.
• Catrin has won multiple awards for her adventurous international collaborations with artists such as Toumani Diabaté, Edmar Castaneda and Seckou Keita. Her collaborative albums with Seckou Keita have won BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best Group (2019), Album of The Year fRoots Critics Poll (2013, 2018), numerous Songlines Music Awards and have hit the top of the Transglobal World Music Charts, World Music Charts Europe and the Official UK charts.
• Catrin has appeared at leading global music festivals including WOMAD, Shambala, Sfinks, Chicago World Music Festival, Hay Festival, Lorient Interceltic Festival, Sydney Opera House and the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall.
• In 2000, the future King Charles III decided to revive the ancient office of Royal Harpist (last filled during the reign of Queen Victoria in 1873) and chose Catrin as its first incumbent.
• Aoife plays a violin by J.B. Vuillaume on generous loan as well as a Jurgen Manthey violin made in Leipzig, Germany. Her bow is an Arthur Vigneron bow from the early 1900’s. Aoife’s Hardanger fiddle was made in 2018 at the Ole Bull Academy's workshop. It was partly made with help of a CNC-router and finely reworked by Sigvald Rørlien, master of Hardanger fiddle making.
• Catrin plays a customised Camac Big Blue electric acoustic pedal harp.

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7/ SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

Catrin Finch on social media...

...Aoife Ní Bhriain on social media

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