Finn McConnell

My musical journey began with the piano at the age of six. I discovered the electric bass at age eleven, and began learning trombone in school around the same time. At age fourteen, I found my passion for the upright bass, and naturally started to take music more seriously, devoting more and more time to it as a creative practice. From a young age, I gravitated towards positions of leadership within music: throughout secondary school holding the first trombone seat in concert bands, beginning to lead my own original projects ranging from jazz to electronic music in the Calgary music scene starting at age 14, and creating a jazz focused music class at my middle school (upon special permission from the administration following budget cuts to our music program). When graduating high school, I chose to pursue a bachelor’s of music in jazz performance at McGill University (graduating class of May, 2020) as a next step in my artistic journey. Shortly after beginning my schooling in Montreal, I began having opportunities to play gigs with some heroes of the city's jazz scene such as Andre White, and Kevin Dean, as well as gigging regularly with my peers. My first two years of university left me exhausted, so I took a year long hiatus, feeling a need to focus on other musical projects which had fallen to the wayside. During this time, I bought a guitar and began to write and produce everything from electronic to folk music, gigging with several indie projects as a bassist, keyboardist, and vocalist, and also leading two of my own live bands. I returned to my schooling in fall of 2018 feeling inspired and rejuvenated. In February of 2020, I was invited The New School in New York City to audition for the first year of their new master's program - Performer Composer (MM). Since then I have been accepted with merit scholarship.