We just wanted to take a proud moment to share a bit of a bio on Kieran Finnegan, one of our former students who started with us at the age of 9 years old and has continued impressively
with his passion and talent for music throughout the years.
Bio Kieran Finnegan is a twenty-five-year-old Irish pianist and harpsichordist who began his studies at the age of nine with Frederiek Biesma in his hometown, Kenmare. He completed his BMus in the CIT Cork School of Music (CSM), graduating with First Class Honours in 2014. While in the CSM, Kieran studied piano under the direction of Eleanor Malone and Jan Cap. In 2016, he completed the Masters in Music Performance in the CSM with first class honours. He spent the last year of his studies on Erasmus in Verona's Conservatorio di Musica F.E. Dall' Abaco, studying piano with Laura Cattaneo and harpsichord with Marco Vincenzi. Kieran’s first competition success came back in 2007, winning the Rotary Club’s Young Musician of the Year competition in Killarney. Since then, his Baroque chamber music group, The Riva Quartet, won the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet Chamber Music Competition in 2013. He has been highly commended in the CSM Piano Accompaniment Competition and in the Advanced Recital Competition, and commended in the Senior Concerto Competition. He has also had success in Féile an tSamhraidh and Feis Maitiu Corcaigh. Beginning his harpsichord studies with Pauline MacSweeney in 2010, Kieran is an avid continuo player, and has played in Vanbrugh Camerata alongside members of the The Vanbrugh Quartet. He also played in the Cork Baroque Orchestra at the Cork International Choral Festival 2015. As a member of Ensemble Dagda, Kieran continues to perform Baroque music all around the country. Dagda were featured in both the East Cork Early Music Festival and the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in 2017 and are set to return to Bantry for West Cork’s 2018 Festival.