Owen Shiers is a native of Ceredigion in West Wales and grew up surrounded by the sonorous tones drifting from his father’s harp workshop as well as age old traditions such as the Eisteddfod and Hen Galan. He is an accomplished guitarist and composer and has been working for the Astar music label since 2009, absorbing and integrating the sounds and flavours of various indigenous musics into his own work.

He has toured in the USA, Europe, Africa and the Middle-East and has played at festivals such as WOMAD, Glastonbury and Shambala. His compositions have been used by the BBC and in the US on Emmy winning show 'Portlandia', as well as a host of other forms of broadcast media worldwide, including National Geographic and TV3. He has also worked alongside artists such as Peter Gabriel, Toumani Diabate, Seckou Keita, Sam Lee and Spiro.

In 2015 he began a collaboration with musician and storyteller Gwilym Morus-Baird resulting in the creation of the 'Gadael Tir' show which tells the story of land rights and protest in Wales in song, poetry and story. In 2016 He received a Finzi Trust scholarship to research and collect songs from Ceredigion, West Wales. The material from this culminated in the 'Cynefin' project which has toured festivals across the UK and sees a single release this autumn on the Astar Label.