Frankie Gavin

Frankie Gavin is an Irish fiddler and flute player from County Galway, best known as a founder of the band De Dannan. Largely self-taught, he won All-Ireland under-18 titles on both fiddle and flute at the age of seventeen.

Career

Gavin started on tin whistle at four and later took up flute; on the fiddle he is mainly self-taught. At seventeen he won first place in the All-Ireland under-18 competitions for both fiddle and flute. In the early 1970s he played sessions at Galway's Cellar Bar with Alec Finn and others, and in 1974 he and Finn founded De Dannan. After the band split, he formed Frankie Gavin and The New De Dannan in 2003.

He has played and recorded with Andy Irvine, Elvis Costello, the jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli and the Rolling Stones, and in 2010 was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as reputedly the fastest fiddle player in the world.

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