A REMARKABLE fusion of Welsh and Senegalese music will be wowing the audience at a top festival.

Former royal harpist Catrin Finch will be taking centre stage alongside kora player Seckou Keita at the North Wales International Music Festival at St Asaph Cathedral at 7.30pm on Monday, October 4.

The critically acclaimed duo are fresh from performing at the Royal Albert Hall as one of the highlights at this year’s Proms.

The North Wales International Music Festival that’s celebrating its 50th year will be a hybrid event after being held solely online last year because of the pandemic.

Organisers say the support of the Arts Council of Wales and festival sponsors was crucial in enabling the event to go ahead this year, with the arts-loving care organisation Pendine Park as the headline sponsor via the Pendine Arts and Community Trust which support arts and community activities.

This year five concerts will take place in St Asaph Cathedral, with the London Tango Quintet featuring Craig Ogden on guitar performing on the opening night, Thursday, September 30.

The collaboration between Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita should never have happened.

They were first introduced in March 2012, when producers called upon Seckou to stand in when a military coup in Mali had detained kora virtuoso Toumani Diabaté and prevented him from attending rehearsals for a major tour with Catrin Finch.

Coincidentally, it came about a year after another connection between Wales and Senegal re-established itself.

Ospreys were persecuted to extinction in Wales during the 17th century but 400 years later the magnificent raptors made a comeback, naturally returning to the Mid Wales area.

In 2011, osprey chicks hatched in a nest in the Dyfi Valley in Mid Wales – the first time this had happened since 1604.

The re-emergence of ospreys in Wales inspired the first track of Catrin and Seckou’s 2018 album, SOAR, celebrating the remarkable affinities between the Welsh harp and the West African kora, resembling a cross between a harp and a lute.

The release was greeted with a raft of 4 and 5-star reviews from press and critics worldwide.

Ann Atkinson, the festival’s Artistic Director, said: “We are delighted to be able to welcome Catrin and Seckou to this year’s festival.

“It’s a very special year in our history and it’s appropriate we are able to showcase such a wide array of world class musical talent.

“It will be so wonderful to be back actually in the cathedral with a live audience and we are very grateful to the Arts Council of Wales and festival sponsors for their continued support in helping us do this.

“But we are also deeply aware that last year’s digital festival reached a worldwide audience and with that in mind part two of this year’s festival will be a series of free online concerts in November for the people who’ve been following us from America, from across Europe, and right across the world as far afield as New Zealand - as well as those closer to home.

“This will give us the best of both worlds because, as well as providing the opportunity to enjoy live music in the cathedral once again, we will also be able to reach out to a global audience.”

Festival tickets are available online 24/7, from Theatr Clwyd, Mold – 01352 344101 (Monday - Saturday, 10am- 5pm) or Cathedral Frames, St Asaph – 01745 582929 (Wednesday - Friday, 10am - 4.30pm). For more information about the North Wales International Music Festival visit www.nwimf.com