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Saturday September 19 2009, 8:00 PM
@ Derwen Road Bridgend CF31, Derwen Road, Bridgend
Attendees: @Geraint Hopkins
London Welsh Rugby Club Choir comes to Bridgend
The London Welsh Rugby Club has a long and illustrious history, and its latest torchbearers – the club choir – will be in Bridgend this month for a charity fundraising concert.
Since its formation, under the presidency of Wales and British and Irish Lions legend John Dawes OBE, the choir has brought its unique sound to sell out audiences across the UK, Europe and New Zealand. With strong ties to both their Welsh roots and the exile community centred around London Welsh’s famous Old Deer Park, the choir continues to spread their love of music to old and young alike.
Rugby and song have gone hand in hand at Old Deer Park since the club’s inception in 1885. It has contributed 177 players to the Welsh national team, including names such as JPR Williams, Gerald Davies, Mervyn Davies, John Taylor and John Dawes. And if you think that’s the making of a dream team on the pitch, you should hear them stretching their vocal chords off it.
John Dawes of course needs little introduction. During the 1970s he masterminded the advance of London Welsh as one of the most attractive and successful sides in the history of the game, with London Welsh producing seven of the 1971 Lions. As captain and coach of both Wales and the Lions, his place in Welsh folklore was recently secured when he was awarded the accolade as ‘the greatest ever coach in Welsh rugby’. He remains president of a club that is on the verge of potential transformation, gearing itself up to launch an assault on the top level of professional rugby in England.
And the choir he presides over goes from strength to strength too, with its 40-strong members kept firmly in line by a local boy from North Cornelly,Bridgend in South Wales, Michael Wyn Jones. Mike Jones has been a member of the BBC Symphony Chorus and the 1998 Choir of the Year Exmoor Singers, and is responsible for a development of the choir few could have predicted. The repertoire has been expanded, a new style of singing introduced and innovations developed wherever possible. The result is a choir singing with an infectious enthusiasm that is hard to resist.
Fresh from a series of concerts in and around London, and ahead of an Autumn tour to Spain, the choir will be singing to a packed crowd at Bridgend’s Tabernacl Chapel on Saturday 19 September. The concert is in support of Street Pastors, the organisation that makes a positive difference to the lives of young people in response to the problem of crime and safety.
On the night, the boys will have some slightly more attractive support in the form of young soloist Menna Davies. Davies is a former pupil of Bishop of Llandaff High School in Cardiff and has just completed the first year of her undergraduate music degree at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She won the Operatic Solo award at the 2008 National Eisteddfod in Cardiff along with the Osborne Roberts Memorial Trophy, the Blue Riband for singers of all voices in her age group.
So if you’d like to be part of a night that will touch your ears, eyes and heart, make sure you’re at the Tabernacl Chapel on the 19th.
@ Derwen Road Bridgend CF31, Derwen Road, Bridgend
Attendees: @Geraint Hopkins
London Welsh Rugby Club Choir comes to Bridgend
The London Welsh Rugby Club has a long and illustrious history, and its latest torchbearers – the club choir – will be in Bridgend this month for a charity fundraising concert.
Since its formation, under the presidency of Wales and British and Irish Lions legend John Dawes OBE, the choir has brought its unique sound to sell out audiences across the UK, Europe and New Zealand. With strong ties to both their Welsh roots and the exile community centred around London Welsh’s famous Old Deer Park, the choir continues to spread their love of music to old and young alike.
Rugby and song have gone hand in hand at Old Deer Park since the club’s inception in 1885. It has contributed 177 players to the Welsh national team, including names such as JPR Williams, Gerald Davies, Mervyn Davies, John Taylor and John Dawes. And if you think that’s the making of a dream team on the pitch, you should hear them stretching their vocal chords off it.
John Dawes of course needs little introduction. During the 1970s he masterminded the advance of London Welsh as one of the most attractive and successful sides in the history of the game, with London Welsh producing seven of the 1971 Lions. As captain and coach of both Wales and the Lions, his place in Welsh folklore was recently secured when he was awarded the accolade as ‘the greatest ever coach in Welsh rugby’. He remains president of a club that is on the verge of potential transformation, gearing itself up to launch an assault on the top level of professional rugby in England.
And the choir he presides over goes from strength to strength too, with its 40-strong members kept firmly in line by a local boy from North Cornelly,Bridgend in South Wales, Michael Wyn Jones. Mike Jones has been a member of the BBC Symphony Chorus and the 1998 Choir of the Year Exmoor Singers, and is responsible for a development of the choir few could have predicted. The repertoire has been expanded, a new style of singing introduced and innovations developed wherever possible. The result is a choir singing with an infectious enthusiasm that is hard to resist.
Fresh from a series of concerts in and around London, and ahead of an Autumn tour to Spain, the choir will be singing to a packed crowd at Bridgend’s Tabernacl Chapel on Saturday 19 September. The concert is in support of Street Pastors, the organisation that makes a positive difference to the lives of young people in response to the problem of crime and safety.
On the night, the boys will have some slightly more attractive support in the form of young soloist Menna Davies. Davies is a former pupil of Bishop of Llandaff High School in Cardiff and has just completed the first year of her undergraduate music degree at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She won the Operatic Solo award at the 2008 National Eisteddfod in Cardiff along with the Osborne Roberts Memorial Trophy, the Blue Riband for singers of all voices in her age group.
So if you’d like to be part of a night that will touch your ears, eyes and heart, make sure you’re at the Tabernacl Chapel on the 19th.
