MAY 2025 DONALD WG LINDSAY Two Boats Under The Moon (double disc) Independent release; DL001 www.donaldwglindsay.com This fascinating and dreamy double disc is the impressive solo song debut of Scottish musician and instrument inventor-cum-builder Donald WG Lindsay; it’s a lovely and peaceful collection of 14 live-in-the-studio recordings, made during December 2024 at Watercolour Music in…
Author: Micktems
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Announcement
by Micktems •
Sorry, folks – but owing to circumstances beyond my control, FolkWales Online Magazine and the All-Wales Listings Pages will no longer be developed. However, CD reviews (Mick’s Picks) is very much alive and will still carry on – please continue to send your albums to me.
Feature, News
The National Eisteddfod – and Llewelyn Alaw – is coming home
by Micktems • • 0 Comments
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…
Feature, News
Other Voices Cardigan announces first wave of artists
by Micktems • • 0 Comments
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
by Micktems • • 0 Comments
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
by Micktems • • 0 Comments
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
by Micktems • • 0 Comments
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
by Micktems • • 0 Comments
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
by Micktems • • 0 Comments
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
by Micktems • • 0 Comments
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…