Musical Journey

It all started when I was eight years old, lying on the floor at my friend Mark's house with my head beside his dad's old stereo. Without telling me, he put on Thin Lizzy's Live and Dangerous and turned it up to full volume, expecting to shock me. It did — but not in the way he thought. I was captivated by what I heard: the opening salvos of Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson's guitars.

I went home full of gusto and begged my mother, a classical flautist, for a guitar. The next day I got an old battered nylon-string classical guitar, rusty strings and covered in warts, and I loved it. It sounded nothing like the rock and roll I had heard, of course. My mother sent me to learn classical music and I did eight years of lessons, achieving distinction in all my grades, while by night I was secretly learning the riffs of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy and what became the holy grail for me as a teenager, AC/DC.

Then came an obsession with pop music, Michael Jackson above all, which led to a love of nineties RnB. I didn't have the love for classical as a child, but as an adult it came full circle and now I hear the beauty in it, alongside jazz, blues, pop, flamenco, bossa nova and traditional Irish music. I'm grateful for all those hours exploring and developing my technique, and eternally grateful to my family, particularly my mother, for encouraging me through it. After school I studied music at UCD, BIMM and DCU, graduating with an Honours Degree, a Masters and a Performance Diploma in Guitar achieved with Distinction.

Since then my guitar has taken me across the world and introduced me to my closest friends in the most incredible industry. Along the way I’ve had the privilege of sharing the stage with some remarkable artists: