Interview: Catrin Finch discusses her new album, written to her younger self

Stephen Price

Catrin Finch releases her new album Notes to Self, next week, a series of reflective and deeply personal new tracks she has composed for Katy, her 13-year-old self, and her first album of solo compositions in a decade.

With accompanying letters underscoring the profound stories of her personal journey, Notes To Self weaves together Catrin’s experiences, emotions, and introspections.

Through her music, she explores themes of vulnerability, expectation, transformation, and the unpredictability of a life played out in the public eye.

Each composition draws from her past; a 40-year career as one of her generation’s most adventurous and pioneering artists.

Her enduring honesty and bravery resonate, inviting listeners to connect deeply with her story, as she translates her struggles and triumphs into sound.

Notes To Self not only showcases Catrin’s evolution as a musician, but charts a remarkable career shaped by her experiences as a gay woman, a cancer survivor, a sister, daughter and a mother.

Ahead of her imminent tour and the new album’s release, Catrin spoke with Nation Cymru  about her decades-long career, upheaval and healing through music.

The concept of writing to your younger self is such a brilliant theme – how did you come to it? And how was the writing process compared to previous works?

If I look at the last decade and more of my career, collaborations have featured quite strongly, and so over the last couple of years, I have been conscious that I was ready and wanting to do a solo album.

This last decade of my life has not been entirely straightforward and easy, and so I guess I was ready to reflect on the events that have happened in my personal life, and so the idea of writing to my childhood seemed a good way to do that.

Reading ’40 year career’ I found astonishing – how are you finding not only the ride, but looking back on such a varied, exciting, collaborative career?

Ha! Well, I guess I’m not quite old enough yet to hang up my boots, but I started playing harp as a six year old, and so even those early years of learning and studying form part of my career.

I feel privileged to have had the opportunities that I have had, and have embraced every one of them that has crossed my path.

Even though I am a classically trained musician, I have always loved, explored and embraced every style and genre of music, and so the opportunities to play many different styles and genres of music with many different musicians from around the World, has been one that I have found very exciting and fulfilling over the years.

Collaboration particularly defines much of your more recent work, especially the bringing together of disparate voices and instruments – are these all organic? And have you got the next project lined up already in your mind?

Yes, I would say that all my collaborative projects have been very organic, and have developed through performance and recording over the years.

I find collaboration very enjoyable, as of course, it’s always more fun to make music with somebody else, and I have been lucky to have found such wonderful and inspiring collaborative partners.

What’s to come in the future? We will have to wait and see! That’s what’s so exciting about being a musician – you never know what opportunities wait around the corner.

I really enjoyed the imagery with this album – it almost feels like a music video in itself, can you tell us more about the concept and how it all came about?

As an instrumentalist, you never really get the opportunity to write down any words with your music, and so quite often interpretation of your music is made by the listener, and the listener can be moved or hear different things in your music.

This time, and for this album “Notes to self”, it seemed quite important to get the message of each piece across, and so writing a letter to my childhood self was a nice way to reflect on events and experiences that have happened to me during the course of the last thirty years or so.

The album itself touches on some very personal themes, perhaps moreso than ever – your sexuality and your health being the two most obvious to note – does it feel vulnerable bringing those to the fore with your music? 

Yes, it feels very vulnerable, and amongst my friend and peer groups, I am famously not great at talking about worries and problems.

So this was a big step for me to come out of my comfort zone and speak so openly about very personal experiences.

Now I have done it though, it has been a very healing process.

The album is bilingual, was that important for you?

Even though the letters that accompany this album are in English, a lot of the things that I do, I try to do bilingually.

As a Welsh speaker, the Welsh language is obviously very important to me, and I feel very lucky that I went to a Welsh school as a child and had the opportunity to learn the language.

On to the music itself – tell us more about its movement from poetry to music to collaboration and recording….

I find it hard to describe my music! By now, it comes out of many years of collaborations, with all sorts of musicians, and from listening to so many different styles of music.

For me, the process of composing music is a very organic one, and this album has developed over a couple of years really.

The process of recording I find very satisfying. I guess it’s a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle – you get all your ideas and hen piece them all together.

There are multiple layers of harps on some of the pieces, and so my task now is to work out how I play it all live. But that is also an enjoyable and satisfying process, as live performance is where you really get to speak and connect with your audience.

And for me, that is what it is all about.

And finally, to hear it live, do we have long to wait?

No! I start touring on the album release day – 27 February. All details are on my website www.catrinfinch.com

Catrin Finch Notes To Self dates 2026:

27 February Mwldan, Aberteifi / Cardigan
28 February Liverpool Philharmonic Music Room
1 March Acapela, Cardiff
4 March Apex, Bury St Edmunds
15 March Wiltshire Music Centre, Bradford On Avon
20 March Wyeside, Llanfair Ym Muallt / Builth Wells
21 March Neuadd Dwyfor, Pwllheli
22 March Ucheldre, Holyhead
2 May Kings Place, London
15 May The Borough, Abergavenny
23 May Constantine Centre, Tolmen
4 June St George’s Bristol