Celebrating 16 years of their ongoing partnership with a UK tour for summer 2023, this thrilling global collaboration combines internationally renowned Ceredigion harpist Catrin Finch with twice-Grammy nominated Colombian joropo band Cimarrón.

In Ceredigion and Gwynedd, the tour comes to Cardigan Castle on Wednesday, 12 July; Galeri, Caernarfon on Thursday, 13 July; and Musicfest at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on 31 July.

Catrin is one of the world’s most celebrated harpists, an extraordinary talent and musical adventurer whose career includes both solo performances with the world’s top orchestras and, more recently, sensational award-winning collaborations with some of the greatest global musicians, including Toumani Diabaté (Mali), Seckou Keita (Senegal) and Ireland’s Aoife Ní Bhriain. Catrin 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.

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.

She has also 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.

Cimarrón performs joropo music from the Plains of the Orinoco River in eastern Colombia and western Venezuela; wild, untamed music that preserves the spirit of freedom found in one of the world’s most untouched regions, rooted in a deep tradition defined by the mestizo mixed heritage of African, Spanish and indigenous cultures.

Six-piece Grammy-nominated Cimarrón is fronted by Ana Veydo, whose virtuous voice defies the male-centric traditions from the cattle ranches.

Cimarrón means ‘untamed bull’, and the band took this name as an allegory of freedom in music. Their powerful scenic force achieves a unique blend of its Andalusian, Indigenous American and African roots, with an impetuous and deep ethnic singing, amazing stomp dance and fierce instrumental virtuosity of strings and percussions.

Their energetic and infectious music includes harp, four-stringed cuatro, guitar-like timple and bandola, maracas, Afro-Peruvian cajón, Brazilian surdo, Afro-Colombian tambora, ancient deer-skull whistles from the Orinoco River, and all the power of the stomp dance from Los Llanos (Colombian and Venezuelan Plains).

Led by the singer Ana Veydó and founded in partnership with the harpist Carlos Cuco Rojas (1954-2020), Cimarrón takes joropo tradition to another level, recently winning Best Group in the Songlines Music Awards for 2021, with the Financial Times naming their most recent album La Recia as one of their top 10 Best Folk and World Music Albums of the year.