Benjamin Gunnery

I started my musical studies aged seven on the classical piano. After a year, my parents decided on the violin, guitar and Irish tin whistles. I started playing by ear on my main instrument (the violin) and mainly centered on Irish and other folk music and jazz. At ten, I started my classical studies with a private teacher and started playing in quartets, folk/jazz bands and making solo appearances in local festivals and competitions. Throughout my dodgy teenage years I have enjoyed a diverse range of musical inspirations and cultures. When I was fifteen I went on a music tour to South Africa playing traditional Irish music and that was extremely cool – I fell in love with the place. On that note, I also played with strings of India in the Barbican Centre in London, England which opened up a new world of inspiration for me.

Influences

My favorite musical inspirations would have to be Tommy Potts, a great Irish fiddle player from Dublin. When I listen to him it makes me realize that musicality and pure love of music can override technical imperfection. Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony is one of the most intensely distressing pieces of music I’ve every heard. When I heard Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue”, I was seventeen and it stopped me from slashing around the fiddle to impress because Miles Davis proves that simplicity is beauty. I feel that it is very important to keep music evolving and although listening to Irish traditional music in the simplest form is beauty in itself, I enjoy fusing Jazz influences (like Stephane Grapelli) with Classical and with musicians from different musical backgrounds. If you were to see my CD collection, you would see a vast collection from Classical to Traditional, Jazz, Rap, Drum n’ Bass to Garage. I think that there is so much great music out there from so many different cultures that it would be a shame to miss out on any of it! Thank you for clicking on me and I’ll probably see you in your country’s Irish session pubs playing some tunes on our travels.