Mary Ann Kennedy & Finlay Wells

Mary Ann Kennedy & Finlay Wells at Isle of Lismore Public Hall

After a decade Making It Happen are delighted to bring Mary Ann Kennedy and Finlay Wells back to Lismore.
The duo enjoy a long-time musical friendship going back over a decade, bringing together very different musical backgrounds to create their own unique take on Gaelic music and song. They first worked together on Mary Ann’s family recording project, The Campbells of Greepe, produced by Grammy award-winner Jerry Boys (Buena Vista Social Club), and the duo was cemented through her solo albums, released on international world music label, ARC Music.

Mary Ann grew up in a Gaelic-speaking family in Glasgow with roots in Skye and Tiree. She was brought up in a multicultural part of the city, where a mother-tongue that was not English was the norm. Her mother’s family are well-known Gaelic tradition bearers, but she also trained as a classical musician at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. She earned her broadcasting chops in BBC news, before returning to a freelance life combining music, radio, and television, based at her Watercolour Music studios in Lochaber. She was Gaelic Singer of the Year at the 2019 Scottish Traditional Music Awards, and a New Writer awardee with the Scottish Books Trust in 2020. Having performed on and produced over 40 albums in her career, she finally stepped forward with two solo albums – ‘An Dàn’ (2017) and ‘Glaschu – Hometown Love Song’ (2019).

From the moment he picked up a guitar at age 11, Oban-born Finlay was gripped by a passion for music-making. Self-taught on guitar, followed by classical instruction as a teenager, Finlay went on to study studio engineering and production in the United States, at Columbus University, Ohio, before returning to his hometown where he runs his own studio, Nutshell Music. He has been a professional musician/producer and educator for over 20 years, playing and writing with top-flight industry professionals, including the European folk-rock outfit COAST, Sorren MacLean, Aidan O’ Rourke, The Ivan Drever Band, and The Big Fat Electric Ceilidh. He also established the ecological music and poetry project The Familiar Wilderness with geo-poet Professor Donald MacLean, creating original music and words in response to various aspects of the Highland landscape, to be released in 2022.

The two have gone on to work together on many other projects including the BBC’s Alleluia series, and ‘Talamh Beò (Living Land), a celebration of Coigach and Assynt in the north-west Scottish Highlands, to be released later this year.

When not making music, Mary Ann helps brew amazing award-winning beer in the local artisan microbrewery where she can also be found on a Friday night, turning pizza chef. Finlay has been known to enjoy pizza.