I had been a fan of the band Flook for a few years before I had the opportunity to meet Flook founding member Brian Finnegan, flute and whistle wizard and prolific composer of great tunes. Flook was doing something really new with Irish music, writing new tunes that sounded old and new at the same time, and making arrangements featuring alto flute and Irish whistle together with guitar and bodhran, and guess what, no fiddle!
In 2009 Brian and I were invited to perform and teach at one of my favorite music festivals called Boxwood in the lovely seaside town of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. We spent a week together playing and talking and developing a musical and personal friendship. When leaving the camp we said to each other - maybe we should play together some more down the road. A few years later we organized a tour of California which ended with a recording session with Dave Ogden, a wonderful engineer living near Fresno. We recorded Toward the Sun in 3 days, and released it the following year. In November of 2015 we were invited to play in Chile, invited by a great musician named Ernesto Calderon. We spent 10 days playing and teaching and finished up our tour with a gig at a pub in Santiago! Over at Facebook there's a video of us playing with Ernesto and his wife, a lovely new tune called El Gran Norte.
Making music with Brian Finnegan kept me on my toes, on the edge of my seat, and always inspired by his virtuosity and musicianship. Hoping for more of this magic in the future!
Find this at CDBaby
Brian Finnegan and William Coulter released Their first duo recording, “Toward the Sun”, in early July 2014. Performances on the east coast and a return trip to Nova Scotia celebrated this new CD.
Brian Finnegan is widely regarded as one of Ireland’s most exciting and innovative traditional musicians, flaunting his flute and whistle with a flamboyance and flair. “A thrilling talent, marvelous technical dexterity, bold musical imagination and urgency, combining playing of breathtaking suppleness and delicacy.” – Scotland on Sunday –. Finnegan is also acclaimed as a composer of tunes in the traditional style, amply attested to by his spectacular CD, “The Ravishing Genius of Bones.” William Coulter is a Grammy Award winning guitarist who has been performing, recording, and teaching traditional and classical music for the past 25 years.
