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…
Category: Feature
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…
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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…
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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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Mighty Pendevig! 15-musician juggernaut plans to turn Welsh trad music on its head
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“There’s a thriving music scene in Wales at the moment, and we want to bring that energy onto the Pavilion stage this year” – these are the words of Angharad Jenkins, member of award-winning folk band, Calan, and one of those involved in creating Pendevig, a brand-new 15-musician-strong juggernaut starring some of Wales’s leading players.…
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Feature, News
Frigg’s Finnish four-fiddle freewheeling fantasia… and a bonus workshop!
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Two years ago, I drove to the Borough Theatre in Abergavenny to review a Finnish four-fiddle band who rejoice in the name of Frigg. The seven musicians trooped on stage, seriously stepped on the gas and totally blew me away with their fantastic, singing sound that only a quartet of violins can claw at the…
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Dreaming The Night Field: how Brummie Stacey learned to love The Mabinogion and the Welsh language
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Question: What do you get if you mix magnetic Welsh storyteller Michael Harvey, the wonderful and simply stunning voices, harp and accordion of Stacey Blythe and Lynne Denman and production company Adverse Camber? Answer: Dreaming The Night Field, the fourth branch of the centuries-old Welsh-language literary masterpiece, The Mabinogion – and Michael, Lynne and Stacey…
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English music? Tim hides his Welsh influence under a Dark Lantern
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Tim Jones is totally over the moon at the critics praising his latest album, Blossom And Fruit. Even the ultra-hip major player in the folk-roots world, the mighty fRoots Magazine, awarded the traditional singer, guitarist and prolific songwriter and his band The Dark Lanterns a massive five stars and placed Blossom And Fruit in their…
Feature
Stunning music, beautiful lyrics and a strong celtic gesture: that’s Mary Ann’s language
by Micktems • • 0 Comments
Mary Ann Kennedy is a Scottish Gaelic musician, singer, choral director, composer, radio and television presenter and music producer; she also trains and conducts Còisir Ghàidhlig Inbhir Nis, the Inverness Gaelic Choir, and she used to be a founder member with the Gaelic ‘super-group’ Cliar. Both she and her musician husband Nick Turner produced her solo…