Cory Seznec

About the Artist

Corentin "Cory" Seznec is a Franco-American musician who divides his time between Annapolis, Maryland and Paris, France. A multicultural household, extensive travels and musical encounters, and a passion for history exposed Cory to sounds from around the world, helping him to develop his own distinct style that reflects his broad interests. A Maryland native and a graduate of Johns Hopkins university in Baltimore, Maryland, Cory went on to pursue a career in music after being bitten by the folk music bug that was going around in the early to mid 2000s. Focusing on fingerstyle guitar, clawhammer banjo, voice, harmonica, and an array of other instruments, Cory soaked up country blues, ragtime and old-time music studying and performing with players like Annapolitan Neil Harpe, Pat Donohue (of A Prairie Home Companion), Simon Prager in the UK, Dakota Dave Hull, Parrish Ellis, Mike Baytop, Tom Bailey, and Gary Wright and Leah Weiss, and a host of other players out there. After.meeting accordionist virtuoso Michael Ward-Bergeman in London in 2005, the two went on to form the eclectic world roots trio Groanbox along with Canadian percussionist Paul clifford, which toured around the UK, Europe, and North America for 10 years and recorded 6 alburns. During this period he and his brother Yann, known together as Seznec Bros, released an album Jagged Land.  Cory later helped create the sawmill sessions, an old-Time and Bluegrass collective in Paris and was simultaneously learning African guitar styles with west African, Malagasy, and east African guitar players both in the flesh and through videos and recordings. Having spent a lot of time in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, (where his wife was working) he was active in two bands Misto-Misto and Damakase, which mix Ethiopian music with other African styles. In July 2016, Cory embarked on a trip with filmmaker Gonzalo Guajardo to Luhya country in western Kenya to rnake a documentary on some of the few remaining omutibo style guitar players. The project was inspired by a trip he did with recording team through the heart of Ethiopia in 2014.  In October 2016, Cory recorded a video lesson of some of his arrangements of New Orleans-infused fingerstyle guitar for Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop (released on DVD andd igitald ownload in February 2017 in New York City. After releasing his first solo album Beauty tn The Dirt (2014)' which received critical acclaim in the UK press, he is currently finishing his second studio album Backroad Carnival at Tonehouse Studios outside Paris, featuring his Parisian band.