Tabby Finch

harp,dulcimer,piano,celtic,south american,accordion,world music

Tabby Finch

Multi-instrumentalist Tabby Finch has been performing traditional music in the mid-Atlantic region since 1975. Having studied piano and marimba as a child, she started playing the hammered dulcimer when she received an antique one that had been in her family since the 1840s. In southern West Virginia Tabby learned many traditional Appalachian mountain tunes from Franklin George, Jimmy Costa, George Ward, and others, and began performing with local bands at concerts and festivals. She returned to Northern Virginia a highly sought dulcimist and pianist, becoming a fixture at local country dances, playing first with Contraband and then The Mighty Possums. Tabby would then add the Celtic harp and accordion to her ever-growing list of instruments, studied with the late Derek Bell (The Chieftains), and has performed and taught at numerous workshops and dance weekends, including the Augusta Heritage Festival, Wintersong (Frederick MD), and the Upper Potomac Dulcimer Fest (Shepherdstown WV). Among her various ensembles, Tabby also performs with a variety of Falling Mountaineers: The fine Ceili band The Bog Wanderers, with Irish and Native American flute legend Linda Hickman, and with the many-flavored World Music ensemble Mucho Gusto.