National Celtic Festival

We were delighted to be back at the Festival again and were scheduled for two concerts and a workshop over two days.

Concert at Parks Hall 10.00 -11.00 am Saturday
Despite a foggy morning across the peninsula and an early start, a very large crowd was eager to be seated and ready for the only choral event at the Festival.

After the traditional We’ll Keep a Welcome, we launched into our specially commissioned work Land of my Song with exemplary solos by bass Bob Ash and tenor Geoff Roberts. This was followed by the nationalistic O Gymru and Cwm Rhondda, at the end of which the audience was ready and very able to join in with the final chorus of Songs of Praises.

After exercising their voices, they were happy to listen to Roger Bartlett superbly channelling the weather with “In the quiet misty morning When the moon has gone to bed” as the lilting start to Homeward Bound.

Affirming the obvious, next was What Would I Do Without My Music before bass Geoff Serpell touched everyone’s hearts with the iconic Working Man. When the well-earned applause had died down, the choir went into the popular Gwŷr Harlech march tune with some knowledgeable patrons singing along.

Bob came back to the microphone to tip his hat to another Festival performer Eric Bogle with a marvellously sensitive rendition of Shelter.

A change of pace then with Speed Your Journey and then total deceleration into the unaccompanied Myfanwy.

Showcasing further the choir’s talented group of choristers, Geoff once again stepped forward to join with tenor John Hales, suitably frocked up, to very humorously perform the duet Ah Still Suits Me from Showboat.

As a finale, the choir became animated revolutionaries in the Les Mis medley with very fine solos from Rushan Hewawasam and Roger Bartlett.

By the resounding applause, the audience would have been happy for us to continue but our hour was quickly up.

Compèring duties were shared by Tony Davies, Stephen Pepper and Bob Ash.

Comments included:

Beautiful voices. Colleen
Lovely. Loved “Les Misérables”
A delight from first note till the last. A true pleasure. It was also refreshing to see the choir members so uniformly attired. Thank you for a wonderful performance. Tricia.
Great. Keep it up guys. Lorraine
Great selection of songs. Great harmonies. Wonderful performance. Dave
Just wonderful. Missed last year. Cheryl
Hauntedly beautiful. Maureen
Terrific,good variety. Beautiful singing. Thanks. Lee
Brilliant. Stephanie
Absolutely brilliant. I’m with Geelong Sing Australia. Your choir simply perfect. Thank you. Heather
Wonderful way to start the day. Please come back next year. Nancy
Absolutely perfect. Janet
Brilliant – I enjoyed it very much. Paul
Brilliant! Great repertoire & enjoyed immensely. Gwen
Beautiful – thank you. Su
Thoroughly enjoyed your choir. Closed my eyes & remembered listening to my Uncle Jimsy singing in his male voice choir in Portadown N. Ireland. Eric Bogle song ✔️✔️✔️
Beautiful harmonies. Working Man brilliant. Keep up the good work.😊
Great concert. Bruce
Excellent choir. Great selection of rousing songs and very good soloist singers. Large audience is testimony to good hour’s entertainment. Special mention of John Blackman choir member. Herb (Herbert Picker, Mayor of Portarlington.)

Harmony Workshop at St John’s Church 1.00-2.00 pm Sunday

Having set up a screen and a projector linked to a computer, we were joined by about twenty-five participants which nicely balanced the number of choristers. Faleiry’s extensive teaching experience came to the fore as she quickly established the not inconsiderable musical nous of the visitors. With nimble work on the keyboard by our equally experienced educator Lorna, we were all put through the rudiments of building up chords, note by note, with examples taken from Canon in D, The Rose, Working Man (Bob Ash), culminating in the very appropriate Sunset Poem. The hour went very quickly and much was achieved in that short time.

Comments included:

Most interesting music lesson/demonstration. Mary-Terese
Thanks choir, good to sit in with you and ‘play’. St John’s was a good venue for workshop. Lyn
Well done Faleiry! People do love to sing so unlocking them to harmony is a great thing. The guys sounded great in this little church.
Lots of fun and very rewarding. Great to be part of creating such beautiful music. Veronica
That was so great – an honour to learn the basics with such accomplished singers. Conductor pitched the session perfectly for we novices! Maria
Thank you for sharing the magic of male singers. Well done. 🙂 Bob
Loved ‘the Rose’ by the choir. Am not a singer, but enjoyed learning how a harmony works in parts. Pauline

Concert at St Patrick’s Church 5.00-6.00 pm Sunday

A smaller venue than Parks Hall but the acoustics were better and, being away from the main festivities, we were not troubled by extraneous and competing sounds.

Compère Tony Davies introduced the first bracket of We’ll Keep a Welcome, O Gymru and Cwm Rhondda, again with audience participation, followed by What Would I Do Without My Music.

Alex van Mens then came to the front and brought his rich baritone voice to perform the popular Welsh tune Dafydd Y Garreg Wen.

Second compère Stephen Pepper took over the mike to give the audience a lesson in Welsh pronunciation using the well-known LlanfairPG village name. Education mixed with humour was a great hit with the assembled company as affirmed by the prolonged applause.

Equally well-received was the next number, Working Man, this time magnificently led by Bob Ash. The choir then stood and delivered Gwŷr Harlech before ceding the stage to Roger Bartlett with his well-honed Homeward Bound.

With the allotted concert time rapidly eroding, the choir nonetheless kept perfect time on Speed Your Journey before proving, once again, we could sing without music and accompaniment with Myfanwy. However, there was no time to linger over lost love as we quickly coalesced into the impoverished mob in the Les Mis medley with heart-wrenching solos from Rushan and Roger.

The pent-up emotion and the thrilling words made their musical mark on the marvellous audience with several leaping to their feet and leading the sustained applause. As our final appearance at the Festival, we finished off with the equally stirring Welsh National Anthem, Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau. The audience didn’t want to leave and neither did we so we smartly stepped down from the stage to surround them all and to give our thanks to them with the beautiful parting words of Sunset Poem.

Comments included:

Magnificent and moving. Best hour of my week here.
Hiraeth. Sublime, patriotic songs!! Inimitable rich harmonies which only the Welsh can make. Shane
Very enjoyable – liked the introductions/stories/jokes & the learning of the Welsh town name. Thought the venue was good – suited the choir. Lovely singing & music. Fiona
Excellent performance, thoroughly enjoyed. Professional, great organisation & a great sense of warmth & humour. Owen
Very good singing. Enjoyed the stories with the songs – a very useful part of total performance.
Great! More unaccompanied. Last song gave goose-bumps. Alison
Beautiful singing – as always! The final blessing was particularly moving. Elizabeth
Amazing! So stirring & spine-tingling. Loved the ending being surrounded by the choir.

The Gathering in the main area beside Parks Hall 6.30 pm Sunday

We had thought that was our last farewell but we were invited to go down the hill to join the procession from the Rotunda to the tent area where we were asked to once again sing our farewells with Sunset Poem. It was a lovely and fitting moment, to say our last goodbyes to so many of the marvellously musical Festival patrons.