Catrin Finch

Early life

Finch was born in Llanon, Ceredigion, and began learning the harp at the age of six. Her mother is German and her father English, but she is a fluent Welsh speaker. By the age of nine, she had passed her Grade VIII harp examination. She was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain at the age of ten, becoming the youngest of its members to play at The Proms. She studied harp with Elinor Bennett, who would become her mother-in-law, and later with Skaila Kanga at the Purcell School of Music in London.

During the 1990s, Finch won several competitions for young harpists, including the Nansi Richards Prize and the Blue Riband at the National Eisteddfod of Wales.

Career

Finch's multi award-winning musical career began In 1999, when she won the Lily Laskine International Harp Competition in France. In 2000, she won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York City, subsequently performing at London's Wigmore Hall. She was later appointed Official Harpist to the Prince of Wales, an office reinstated by Charles, Prince of Wales and which had been vacant since the reign of Queen Victoria. She continued in the post from 2000 to 2004.

In recognition of her musical achievements, Finch has been awarded with several academic honours starting with an Honorary Fellowship from the University of Wales in 2006, as well as Honorary Fellowships from the University of Wales and the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in 2005. She is a visiting professor at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and the Royal Academy of Music.

In 2010, Catrin Finch appeared as part of the BBC Children's television series ZingZillas, performing a lullaby composed by Chris Banks and Wag Marshall-Page entitled "Drift Away", alongside the other members of the ZingZillas band. The performance was used in Series 1, Episode 10 of the show, entitled "Sweet Dreams". Catrin is also a skilled pianist, learning most pieces on both harp and piano. She played the Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin on the piano at the National Eisteddfod for Wales in 2010.

In 2015, Finch toured Patagonia with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, taking her family with her.

In 2016, Finch performed on the recording of Cantata Memoria by Karl Jenkins, a choral with orchestra piece dedicated to the children who perished in the 1966 Aberfan disaster. The haunting music contains the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful and also features vocals from Bryn Terfel. The piece premiered at the Aberfan Memorial Concert at the Wales Millenium Centre which also featured spoken-word pieces from Michael Sheen and Sian Phillips. Finch's composition Future Strings from the album Clychau Dibon, which Catrin had written with Seckou Keita, was sampled by Guy Chambers, long-term songwriter to Robbie Williams who heard it played on Desert Island Discs program on BBC Radio 4 .

Personal life

In 2003, Finch married the music and television producer Hywel Wigley, son of the former Plaid Cymru leader Lord Dafydd Wigley. In the same year, she presented Charlie’s Angel, an award-winning television documentary about her career, broadcast on BBC Wales. On 28 December 2007, Finch gave birth to her first child, Ana Gwen. A second daughter, Pegi Wyn, was born in 2010.

Finch and Wigley jointly own Acapela Studio, a world-class recording facility and venue in the rural village of Pentyrch, situated to the North West of Cardiff. The building itself is a converted chapel Capel Horeb. Wales. Together, they have hosted and recorded a large number of international acts including

Discography