The National Eisteddfod, Wales’ largest festival of culture, music, dance and literature, will be held in Ynysangharad War Memorial Park in the town of Pontypridd on August 3-10, 2024 – and historians and musicians have been and will be marking the famous 19th Century Aberdare harper and prolific composer Thomas David Llewelyn, who took the…
Author: Micktems
Feature, News
Other Voices Cardigan announces first wave of artists
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Other Voices Cardigan / Lleisiau Eraill Aberteifi is coming to Cardigan – and it has revealed the first wave of live performers set to take to the festival’s stages from October 26-28. The celebrated harp-and-violin duo Catrin Finch and Aoife Ní Bhriain, Irish singer-songwriter Susan O’Neill, Machynlleth-born triple harpist Cerys Hafana, Italian alt-pop act Sans…
Live Reviews, News
Review: Wilmot is a winner for songsmith Chris
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It was only by chance that Wilmot: A Musical Journey came to fruition. Chris Dale is an impressive guitarist, a lovely songwriter and a stalwart of Llantrisant Folk Club; his son married a girl from Annan, a small Scottish border town on the River Annan, which is just near the Solway Firth. Chris unearthed a…
News
Sing, Valleys, sing! Trac Cymru awarded £206,000 for big project
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An innovative three-year Trac Cymru project which involves schools and communities in Rhondda Cynon Tâf and Neath Port Talbot has been awarded a whopping £206,000 by The National Heritage Lottery Fund. ‘Cân y Cymoedd: When Valleys Sing’ aims to connect villagers in the Cynon Valley and the Amman Valley area with their local history and…
Feature, News
VRï, Dafydd triumph in the Wales Folk Awards celebration
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by Mick Tems The fiddles-and-cello chamber-folk trio VRï and veteran singer, songwriter and Welsh language campaigner Dafydd Iwan shared two accolades at the prestigious Wales Folk Awards, held at the Hoddinott Hall in the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay on Thursday, April 20. Dafydd wrote the most remarkable ‘sleeper’ song in the galaxy. He composed…
Live Reviews, Uncategorised
Review: Kate, John and Dafydd join the party for Dewi Sant
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It’s a national yearly celebration; Gŵyl Dydd Dewi Sant, Wednesday, March 1, and impressive Aberystwyth trio Three Legg’d Mare absolutely delighted and amazed the Llantrisant Folk Club audience with their no-punches-pulled winning show. The band consists of powerful-voiced singer Kate Saunders, who plays Appalachian mountain dulcimer, guitar and Shruti, Rhondda-born singer Jon Davies (concertina, bouzouki,…
Live Reviews
Review: Jocelyn Pettit & Ellen Gira at Llantrisant Folk Club, 15.02.2023
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Fiddler and step-dancer Jocelyn is from the Canadian West Coast and ‘cellist Ellen is based in Washington DC on the American East Coast; those awe-inspiring logistics and the thousands of miles seem to have conspired to keep these two musicians apart. More to the point, Ellen has even moved to Glasgow and is currently pursuing…
Feature, News
Y Gwythienne: Ceri connects with many forgotten tunes of his old home city
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Musician and Welsh music visionary Ceri Rhys Matthews lives with his golden-voiced wife Julie Murphy many miles away in the West Wales village of Pencader, Carmarthenshire (writes Mick Tems.) Nowadays, he is preoccupied with his music tutoring, his Yscolan workshops in Pembrokeshire and The Gallery arts centre in High Street, Swansea, and both he and…
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Feel-good Chorale has mums, dads and teenagers Spooked with delight
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The Spooky Men’s Chorale, The Welsh Folk Prom, St David’s Hall, Cardiff: July 25, 2019 Dave Chamberlain & Siân Northey reviewed: Wales has a long and proud tradition of male choral singing, the Morriston Orpheus and the Treorchy Male Voice choirs being perhaps the best known internationally – but it was an Anglo-Antipodean ensemble taking…
News
Other Voices TV series is coming from Kerry to the West Wales coast
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Ireland’s internationally-acclaimed music festival television series, Other Voices, is coming to Cardigan this autumn. The much-loved programme makes its way from Dingle on the west coast of Ireland to Cardigan on the west coast of Wales, for a phenomenal weekend of music which celebrates the longstanding cultural and musical ties between these Celtic regions. Over…