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: News
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…
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…
News
Other Voices TV series is coming from Kerry to the West Wales coast
by Micktems • • 0 Comments
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…
Feature, News
Mighty Pendevig! 15-musician juggernaut plans to turn Welsh trad music on its head
by Micktems • • 0 Comments
“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.…
Live Reviews, News
Roots Unearthed crowds welcome Gretchen, the super spot-on songwriter
by Micktems • • 0 Comments
GRETCHEN PETERS: Roots Unearthed, St David’s Hall, Cardiff, June 12, 2018 Gretchen Peters is glad to be touring Wales and other parts of the UK, far away from the gloomy administration-led unpredictability, uneasy violence and irrational madness that has damaged her country’s reputation and honour so much. As she and her three-man band finally closed…
