Andrew Finn Magill

ABOUT

Andrew Finn Magill is a multi-genre fiddler/violinist, educator and media composer. He has been featured on PBS, NPR, and TEDx and has received many prestigious awards and honors including: the Mid-Atlantic Arts grant in conjunction w/ Tanasi (2025), an invitation as one of ten violinists to compete in the Seifert Competition for jazz violin in Krakow, Poland (2024), a North Carolina Arts Council fellowship to make The Polaris Project (2023), and a Fulbright fellowship (2009). He has released three albums on Grammy-winning Ropeadope Records and self-released ten others, all of which can be found on Bandcamp.

Magill grew up learning traditional Irish music, oldtime, bluegrass and swing at all of the weeks of Swannanoa Gathering which his father Jim Magill co-founded and directed for 34 years. Through the Gathering's programs, he met many musicians who he would go on to tour with including Rising Appalachia and Grammy-nominee John Doyle. He now coordinates the Fiddle Week which is one of the premier multi-genre fiddle camps in the world.

Over the years Magill has toured with Peter Mawanga, Anya Hinkle, Tanasi, Peia, Ian Coury, Paul McKenna, The Jeremiahs, Emma Langford, and performed with Trio Brasileiro and Liz Carroll. Since 2015, he has toured mostly original projects including Murray & Magill with Alan Murray (Solas), Canta, Violino!, and The Polaris Project, a quartet or original improvisation-based music. In 2026 he will be re-imagining The Polaris Project with a follow-up album produced by Grammy-winning Justin Stanton (Snarky Puppy).

In 2009, Magill was awarded a Fulbright-mtvU Fellowship to spend a year in Malawi co-writing and co-producing the concept album Stories of AIDS: Mau a Malawi, which confronted the HIV/AIDS epidemic by creating ten songs with Peter Mawanga, each being a musical portrait of one Malawian's HIV story. The album quickly sold out and inspired a multimedia show of the same name. Magill wrote and co-directed the show with Jon Haas and Joseph Megel for a one-time performance for 1,000+ people at the University of North Carolina’s Memorial Hall in October 2011.

From 2014 to 2016, Magill lived in Rio de Janeiro studying choro music. Says the legendary Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira (Chick Corea, Miles Davis):

“Its nice to see fresh, young musicians carrying on the traditions of Brazilian music. Finn Magill displays a love and authenticity that can fool you into thinking he is from Brazil. His style is playful and light, yet soulful and passionate. Congratulations!”

In 2016, Magill released two albums Roots and and Branches featuring traditional Irish and original music respectively. Roots debuted at #46 on the Folk DJ charts and writes Grammy-winning Americana artist Tim O’Brien:

“He has learned from and now plays with the best in the genre. On Branches you can hear a new musical voice emerging. I’m gonna keep listening for Finn Magill.”

In 2018, leveraging a background in both traditional Irish and American music, Magill created the lecture series “The relationships between Irish, Scottish, and American fiddle styles: an Immigration Story,” which is a musical presentation for adults that explores the connections between these styles through their fiddle tunes. Magill has given this lecture at dozens of universities and museums across the country including multiple libraries in Maine, Shepherd University, Mars Hill University, the University of Kentucky, and Northeast State Community College, among others.

Since 2021, Magill has scored for film and television with projects ranging from short indie films to commercials. He has also worked closely with celebrated film composer Christopher LaRue Horton on a number of other film projects as a featured violinist and in 2025, the two composed an album exclusively for sync and licensing placements. Magill has also been a professional voice actor for radio, film, tv and audiobooks. He has worked with hundreds of clients including Mattel, Disney and the U.S. Navy. To hear one of his audiobooks, listen here.

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