Tagged: music

Courteous Thief returns with the mezmerising new single 'Mountians And Sea', a refreshingly beautiful indie-folk balled that will serve as a go-to alternative to the 'Christmas song'. 'Mountians And Sea' will be released via CEG Records on Friday 6th December 2019.

Described as both contemporary new folk and acoustic indie pop, Courteous Thief (aka Gary Roberts) has been a regular on the live circuit, supporting bands and artists such as Turin Brakes, Chris Helm, Catfish And The Bottlemen, Mark Morris (The Bluetones) and Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets) as well as festival appearances with performances at some of the UK's top venues and festivals.  

Accolades from past singles and releases has seen Courteous Thief being championed By BBC Radio Wales, achieving the coveted BBC Radio Wales Single Of The Week, BBC live sessions, interviews as well as hitting the airwaves on BBC 6 Music, BBC Introducing, BBC Gloucestershire and recently hitting the British Airways Playlist.  

2019 will see new release “A Bed For Me” released in June on welsh label “CEG Records, with more live dates and new tracks on the horizon for late 2019 and beyond.  “Melodiously mesmerizing, harmoniously vibrant and warmly atmospheric folk-pop finery” (Nessi Hault, Carpe Carmina)

Courteous Thief Online:

www.courteousthief.co.uk
Facebook.com/courteousthief
Twitter.com/courteousthief
Soundcloud.com/courteousthief
Instagram.com/courteousthief

GET READY FOR FEBRUARY 9 ^th - DYDD MIWSIG CYMRU

For your convenience - a link to all the Dydd Miwsig Cymru Playlists posted so far. You will need to be signed in to your AppleMusic, Spotify or Deezer accounts to play these lists.

Legends

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Welsh Electronica

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Friday 9th February 2018

The day celebrates all forms of Welsh Language music and it’s easy to tune in and discover something you’ll love. Music comes to life when it’s experienced live and free events aimed at gig goers, parents and children, young people, students and businesses are happening all across the country organised by promoters including Sŵn, BBC Horizons, Forté Project and Clwb Ifor Bach.

Will you be organising an event?

• Get in touch on cymraeg@gov.wales to let us know!
• Change your hold music to your favourite Welsh songs
• Play Dydd Miwsig Cymru’s 2018 playlists in your workplace
• J oin in on social media by tweeting or sharing the music you and your coworkers like using #DyddMiwsigCymru #WelshLanguageMusicDay
  
• Display the Dydd Miwsig Cymru sticker in your window
• Put on a gig or event for your staff

AmeriCymru will be celebrating Dydd Miwsig Cymru (Welsh Language Music Day) this Friday 9 th ofFebruary by playing playlists, sharing their favourite songs, playing Welsh music in the office all day!.

Whether you’re into indie, rock, punk, funk, folk, electronica, hip hop or anything else, there’s incredible music being made in the Welsh language for you to discover- that’s the message from Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens as he urges people and places across Wales to get involved and find their favourite new sound on the third Welsh Language Music Day (Friday 9th February 2018).

The day celebrates all forms of Welsh Language music and it’s easy to tune in and discover something you’ll love. Music comes to life when it’s experienced live and free events aimed at gig goers, parents and children, young people, students and businesses are happening all across the country organised by promoters including Sŵn, BBC Horizons, Forté Project and Clwb Ifor Bach.

BBC Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens, ambassador for the day, said: “Whatever you're into, Dydd Miwsig Cymru is a day to help you discover music you'll love. You may already be listening to Welsh language music, or maybe you haven’t listened to it for years. There's incredible music of almost every genre, all being made in the Welsh language - there’s even some great playlists to share with your friends and family who may not be listening to Welsh language music. Try something and you might just find your favourite new sound.”

The day is a part of the long-term vision to see a million people speaking and using Welsh by 2050.

Spread the love and the music by using the hashtag

#DyddMiwsigCymru    #WelshLanguageMusicDay .

Free digital packs with information on how to be part of the day are available at

http://cymraeg.gov.wales/DyddMiwsigCymru/Cynnwys/0.0CefnogiDyddMiwsigCymru/?lang=en

and further information is available by emailing Cymraeg@gov.wales.

Playlists can be found at http://cymraeg.gov.wales/DyddMiwsigCymru/Cynnwys/Playlists/?lang=en .

Follow @cymraeg on Twitter, Facebook and Instagr am for the latest details on plans for the day.

AmeriCymru:  Hi and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. How did the band come by its name?

Shaun:   Within our group of friends we’ve got some unique slang words. For instance, when others would say “fancy a cigarette?” we would say “wanna Keith?”. Tate is another one of these words, but we can’t tell you what it means. Liam got dangerously close to spilling the beans on national radio once though.

AmeriCymru:  When was the band formed?

Shaun:   Officially, The Tates got together, as you know us, sometime in 2015, but the bands formation was inevitable since sometime between the late 70’s and mid 80’s when mine and Liam’s dads were in bands such as the ‘Dogs of War’ together. Liam’s dad, the legendary guitar guru, Vince, is in fact my godfather. Jac grew up with us too, which is lucky as his keyboard skills are unbelievable! Tom and Matt befriended Liam in school. They were renowned for their song writing skills quite early on, and spent most of their academic effort loitering in the music department. Liam saw their talents and started jamming with them, playing around with the idea of being a band before Liam told myself and Jac that the time had come, we were fulfilling our destiny and forming The Tates.

AmeriCymru:  What can you tell us about your single 'Water'. The lyrics are intriguing and I'm sure many of our readers would love to know more.

Tom: Water is ultimately a track that plays with the question whether we are the subjects of our environment, our upbringing, of the people and things around us, or are we born the way we are, subject to our innate responses and our genetics given to us by two people in a shared instance, our mother and father. Are the flaws that we share with our parents who we are, or have we learned them. Are we free to be the people we want to be or are we trapped by our genetic make up and our immediate environment and society. Water asks these questions in the form of a brief description of two people's circumstance from their own perspective. of a woman, timid and in a relationship where she fears her partner. And of another, a man, afraid to be open, to feel and to commit. Where do these anxieties and fears derive from, water asks us to contemplate this and to understand the complexities of a person's decisions.

AmeriCymru:  You have been compared to, amongst others, MGMT and early New Order. How do you feel about these comparisons and who would you say are your major influences?

Shaun: It’s always great to be compared to big artists, even if they’re not our cup of tea! Makes us feel we’re doing something right if our music reminds people of artists who have made it. Of course we love the comparisons to MGMT and New Order, both bands we love. We used to do a mean live cover of Blue Monday !

I think each of us in the band would list different artists as major influences. I myself love a mixture of 80s and contemporary pop stuff which influences my drumming. Stuff like Tears for Fears, Duran Duran, Foals, The 1975. I love anything synth too, The Human League, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Chvrches, Kavinski. A few of the guys love the 90’s too. Stuff like Libertines, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Oasis. I think having such a wide variety of influences is really advantageous as we can draw from all of them and create something new and unique.

AmeriCymru:  What can you tell us about the music scene in Carmarthen? Do you think that the Welsh music scene generally is thriving at the moment?

Shaun: The music scene in Carmarthen is buzzing. Gruff has really created something special with Libertino Records and put the town on the map. It’s really given bands and artists the opportunity to be heard and taken seriously. Awesome bands like Los Blancos, Argraph, Adwaith and Hotel Del Salto. We have to give a shout out to another of Carmarthen's successes, our friends, Dream State. They’re absolutely smashing it at the moment, having just signed with Australian label UNFD, played Reading and Leeds this year, getting full page spreads in Kerrang magazine and playing next year’s Download. Everyone in Wales should be really proud of them.

It was looking pretty bleak for the Welsh music scene earlier this year with the threat of closures for venues in the heart of the capital, but the successful “Save Womanly Street” campaign has turned that around completely. The music scene in Wales is now more vibrant than ever, which was made evident at this year’s Swn fest Discovery Day, which we opened. It really was a showcase of all of the outstanding music we have in Wales. If we had to name a few of our favourite Welsh artists right now, outside of Libertino, it’d have to be Boy Azooga, Chroma, Estrons, Monico Blonde and Rainbow Maniac.

AmeriCymru:  Where can people go to hear/buy your music online?

Shaun:   Anywhere, everywhere! Here’s a handy little link that’ll show you all the places you can find it. https://song.link/TheTates Water

AmeriCymru:  What's next for the Tates? Any gigs/new recordings in the pipeline?

Shaun:   We’ve just come out of the studio with our amazing producer, Steffan Pringle, tracking our next two singles. He’s an absolute wizard when it comes to making our tracks sound the best that they can and we just love hanging out with him too. We plan on releasing more tracks in 2018 than we did in 2017 which should be fun and will be announcing some live dates soon too.

AmeriCymru:  Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?

Shaun:   Just to say thank you for all the support for the music scene in Wales and please keep it up. We couldn’t do it without you. Let us know what you think of our new single ‘Water’ on twitter, facebook , email, letter, however. It’s always great to get feedback and we love hearing from people. Maybe it’ll make a perfect Christmas present for someone you know. Merry Christmas, Shaun x

We are extremely pleased and proud to announce that Distinguished Concerts International have made available a pair of tickets for the forthcoming Karl Jenkins concert in New York at the Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, Carnegie Hall on Monday, January 15th, 2018. The program includes Sing! The Music was Given , a new work commissioned for DCINY’s 10th Anniversary, and The Armed Man , which is presented with film. Read our (2010) interview with Karl Jenkins here

We are offering these tickets as a QUIZ PRIZE on Americymru!

Just answer the three easy quiz questions below ( answers can all be found on Wikipedia ) and send them to us at americymru@gmail.com ( all email addresses will be deleted when the competition closes ). We'll throw all the entries in a hat and pick the winner! Please email us by Tuesday, January 10th, 2018 no later than 9 PM ( Pacific Time ). Tickets will be ready at will call on 1/15 at the Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, Carnegie Hall; the winner will just need to bring a photo ID.

Only one entry per email address is permitted. Duplicates will be disqualified. You do not need to be an AmeriCymru member or logged into the site in order to enter this competition.

If you don't win the competition, please do not despair. DCINY is very kindly offering a 30% discount code for AmeriCymru readers. The code is DCC27599 and it can be used online, over the phone, or in person at Carnegie Hall

Karl Jenkins Quiz

1. What are Karl Jenkins middle names?
2. When is Karl's birthday and what year was he born?
3. At which Welsh university did Karl study music?

​MONDAY, JANUARY 15, 2018 at 7:00 PM

Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, Carnegie Hall

The Music of Sir Karl Jenkins: A DCINY Tenth Anniversary Celebration

DCINY honors UK composer Sir Karl Jenkins with an evening comprised of both new and lauded compositions by the honoree. The program includes Sing! The Music was Given , a new work commissioned for DCINY’s 10th Anniversary, and The Armed Man , which is presented with film. The performance is conducted by Jonathan Griffith , DCINY Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, and features Distinguished Concerts Orchestra and Distinguished Concerts Singers International.

PROGRAM

ALL-KARL JENKINS PROGRAM
KARL JENKINS: The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace (with film)
KARL JENKINS - Sing! The Music was Given (New Work Premiere; Commissioned by DCINY Premiere Project)

PERFORMERS

Jonathan Griffith, DCINY Artistic Director and Principal Conductor
Sir Karl Jenkins, DCINY Composer-in-Residence
Featuring Distinguished Concerts Orchestra and Distinguished Concerts Singers International
Tickets $20-$100!
On Sale Now!

Visit CarnegieHall.org or call 212-247-7800
Box Office: 57th Street and Seventh Avenue
Senior and Student Discounts Available at the Box Office with ID
For Group Tickets, VIP Packages, Discounts, and More, e-mail boxoffice@DCINY.org

Ticket Link: The Music Of Karl Jenkins
.

​

The Tates release their new single 'Water' on the 1st of December as a digital download through Libertino Records.

‘Water’ , the brightly infectious new single by Welsh five-piece The Tates , has been eagerly anticipated after the success of the band’s debut release ‘Electric Girl’ . The song was supported by Huw Stephens, BBC Introducing, Radio 1 and gained Amazing radio playlisting as well as being A-listed on BBC Radio Wales.

Energized by their summer tour in support of ‘Electric Girl’ a confident and inspired band returned to the studio in Cardiff to work with producer Steffan Pringle ( Estrons, Himalayas, Future Of The Left ) again. They emerged with a sense of purpose with a song that will redefine 'The Tates' as the torch-bearers of a new sound, a sound that ranges from The Libertines ’ poetic raw energy to the death disco of early New Order and the fuzzed day-glow pop melodies of MGMT .

Lyrically ‘Water’ asks a poetic question exploring themes of nature over nurture, as Tom the guitarist explains: “Are the flaws that we share with our parents who we are, or have we learnt from them? Are we free to be the people we want to be or are we trapped by our genetic makeup and our immediate environment and society?” I t is testament to the band that with their unwavering belief in the pop song they are in full control of their chosen genre - they make the pop song theirs. 'The Tates' build from the ground up, step by step until they can reach the stars.

LINKS

www.libertinorecords.com

https://www.facebook.com/TheTa tesOfficial/

https://twitter.com/THE_TATES

Print/Digital PR contact: Bill Cummings
(Sound and Vision PR) soundandvisionpr@gmail.com
www.soundandvisionpr.com

AmeriCymru: Helo Cai and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. Care to introduce your new album Gwaed y Cymry for our readers?

Cai: My pleasure, it's very cool to be answering questions for you. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to your readers.

Gwaed y Cymry means 'the blood of the Welsh people', and music really is the lifeblood of Wales. The idea of recording a solo album came about after being away from home for a few years. For almost four years now I've been adventuring out in the countryside and wilderness of Minnesota; camping in the forests, staying on farms with friends and family and living in small towns surrounded by lakes and forests, and I am at my happiest when I'm outside, miles from anywhere. I'm very much an outdoors person, my soul is rarely at ease when I'm inside or walking on concrete city streets. But when I'm out in the woods or next to a lake, after a day cutting firewood or fishing, the first thing I want to do is get out an instrument and make music. There's nothing better than playing an accompaniment to the nightscape. Yet music is a thing to share, and music really is alive in many ways - it wants to be shared, and it will whisper in your ear and sneak inside your head and it can drive you to do its bidding. So the music told me to put a little studio together, and for the most part it makes itself, I'm just a vehicle for the tunes. And these Welsh tunes are so old that they have gathered a lot of power. They've been jumping from generation to generation and heart to heart for so long that they have their own will to live and to continue proliferating, and they have become strong. With each new host they gain more resonance. So these are the tunes that have been wandering with me for years, with my own little spin on them. This is the sound I make when I'm out in the wild and playing for the birds. They're pieces my grandfather carried with him and used to sing to me, that I used to play out in the landscape back home, and songs I play now when I'm missing the beaches and mountains of Wales.

AmeriCymru: You are a multi-instrumentalist. What instruments do you play on the album?

Cai: On this album I used the harp, the guitar and whistle as the core of the sound, I was planning to play fiddle as well but as fate would have it I snapped a string on the first day of recording so the violin parts are played as if it were a ukulele - three stringed pizzicato chords underpinning the guitar, which had a good feel so I let fate lead me on that. There's also a pibgorn, the ancient Welsh woodwind instrument, which was made for me by the excellent piper Gafin Morgan. For the song Y Fari Lwyd I used a lot of percussion, as well. The Mari Lwyd tradition is something that happens in pubs late at night, with family and friends, after a few pints, and it's a raucous, spectacular, lively affair, so I wanted to try to capture some of the energy and chaos of a real live Mari Lwyd; I wanted the noise and clatter of a country pub full of excitement and beer, the atmosphere of the winter rain outside kept at bay by a log fire and a band of drunken musicians. So for percussion there's a washboard, a set of bottles and glasses, and I used the dining room floor and dinner table as a drum kit to give the impression of a pub full of people clapping and stamping and hammering on the bar. The harp takes the lead for most of the album, backed up by the ensemble though I've included a couple of solo harp pieces, the pibgorn takes over from time to time as does the whistle and there are a few guitar solo spots here and there, and I also sing on four of the tracks.

AmeriCymru: You currently reside in Minnesota. How did you come to relocate there? Any plans for gigs in the area or the US generally?

Cai: My wife and kids are here in Minnesota, they hail from a farming town north of Minneapolis, and I've really fallen in love with the area over the last few years. I'm playing for the Saint David's Society of Minnesota on the 4th of March, they're hosting an event in the Twin Cities for Saint David's Day focusing on the work of Meredydd Evans, who I've always been a big fan of. I'm also hoping to arrange some shows further afield in Chicago and Milwaukee soon. Ive explored a lot of Minnesota in the last few years, America is a magical place with some fantastic people and I'm chomping at the bit to get rolling and investigate the rest.

AmeriCymru: Care to tell us a little about your Welsh and musical backgrounds?

Cai: Well my grandfather sang in a male voice choir, he had a superb voice and he adored anything Welsh, so the old songs were a big part of my childhood. His family were farmers and coal miners, and of course poets and bards as well. So when I hear their language and the sounds of the harp it feels like home to me. My mother's a big fan of Jamaican music, and plays a lot of ska and calypso which I'm sure has influenced my style. Growing up my dad was always buying me folksy stuff like the Pogues and Django Reinhardt, which gave me a hunger for traditional music. In school I experimented with a broad range of styles, my taste has always varied from early jungle/drum & bass through punk and rock to classical and jazz. When I went off to music college in England I was very lucky to have been tutored by a list of big names, one of whom was the late, great Eric Roche. Eric was an acoustic genius, and he was an amazing teacher. He did a lot to influence my musical direction. For theory lectures his style was to half hyptontize the class in his soft Irish accent and implant the music theory into our subconscious minds. That way, when I need a scale or a chord I don't have to think about it, it's just there. For practical lessons he'd bring in his Lowden acoustic guitar, always set up in some strange alternate tuning, and his skills were jaw dropping - he would play a bassline, two or three guitar parts along with a melody and drum on the instrument all at the same time. He treated the guitar like an orchestra and opened my mind to new ways of playing. And I've been very lucky to have been able to watch a lot of really excellent musicians up close, so when it comes to learning a new insrument I already have a fair idea of how it will work. I've learned a lot just by watching people like Robin Huw Bowen and Gwenan Gibbard play harp. Through my travels I've encountered lots of different musical worlds, from the vibes that the Jamaican and Indian immigrants brought to Britain and the Welsh Gypsy harping tradition to the music that Indonesian and African friends introduced to me when I was living in Holland. The way I perceive music has a lot to do with my mother's indigenous roots which are in northern Scandinavia, and through the work of Sámi musicians like Áillohaš and Mari Boine I've come to see music as something spiritual and much deeper than just a form of entertainment - for me it's more than a pass-time, it's an act of worship and a sacred medicine as well.

AmeriCymru: You formerly played with Welsh band Calan. How would you describe your experience with them?

Cai: Working with Calan was an awesome experience. They're such a very talented group of musicians and wonderful people, and we got to play the music we love in some supreme venues. Recording at Sain's legendary studios was an absolute privilege, and working alongside Maartin Alcock as producer was a massive honor, not to mention Paul Burgess of 10cc fame who played drums for us on the first album. The show that sticks in my mind as my favorite was on a tour in Italy - we were out in the countryside, the venue was a little stage looking out over a tiny village and a backdrop of steep wooded mountains, the day had been very hot and we'd been fed home-cooked Italian food with local wine and cheese and we played our show watching the sun setting behind the hills with a cool breeze in our faces. Playing at the Lorient Interceltique festival in Brittany was a lot of fun, too - one day we were invited to play at a party in the mayor's mansion, where we were filled with salmon, caviar and fine champagne before playing for the movers and shakers in a great, chandeliered marble hall; that was a pretty swanky gig. And then there were the small venues all around Wales with cozy atmospheres where it felt like the audience was all family, those were very happy times. And the audience we gathered are so enthusiastic and appreciative, the fans gave us a great deal of encouragement and inspiration. Making music with Calan was truly joyful. Most importantly, playing with Calan gave me the chance to give something back to Wales, and before Calan came along there was a perception of Welsh music as being kinda slow and sleepy and it was great to be able to show the world that's not the case.

AmeriCymru: Who are your favourite Welsh musicians/bands at the moment?

Cai: Right now I'm loving Elfen - a new trio I haven't yet met who have just put out a record called March Glas which has been going round and round my head for a couple of weeks. New on the scene is also Kizzy Meriel, a solo singer/songwriter act I'm really enjoying, and Patric from Calan is working with a new group named Vrï who are putting out some fantastic stuff. Of course I'm following Calan with glee - their new material is just brilliant, and last year I went to see them play in southern Minnesota when they were touring the States and was pleased to meet the new members and see the line up gels really well. Angharad from Calan has been doing beautiful work with her mother, the harpist Delyth Jenkins, under the name DnA (as in Delyth'n' Angharad). I'm very excited to see what all these guys come out with in the future.

AmeriCymru: What's next for Cai ab Alun? Any new recordings in the works?

Cai: I'm currently looking into starting a show on public access radio, focusing on Welsh music but not exclusively, and maybe there'll be some comedy thrown into the mix. Alongside that I'd like to set up some Welsh language classes, because the language is an important part of the culture and it would be very good to help reconnect the Welsh diaspora here with their roots. I'm beginning work on another album now, and for the next one I'll be adding some new instruments to the line up, though I'll be drawing on the same inspiration as before I'd like to open up some new horizons and augment the sound I've crafted with something more. I'm hearing drums, a double bass and perhaps accordion too. I'm adding flute and recorder to my wind section, I'd love to get hold of a crwth and I may do some experimentation with tuned percussion like steel pans and xylophone. There are lots of tunes and songs I wanted to do for this first album but I felt some of my absolute favorite pieces deserve to be given more considration, a little more rumination and some additional colors on my palette. I'd love to try collaborating with a couple of other musicians over the internet, as well - with modern technology it would be easy to do a duet with someone on the other side of the world and that could be fun. So I am planning to make a lot more music in the next few years.

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?

Cai: Only that I'm looking forward to getting out there and meeting a new audience here in the States!

Electronic music producer LITTLE ERIS (BRONWEN DAVIES), classically trained singer CAT SOUTHALL, and writer/actress JENNI DAVIES team up for a very special song inspired by the poem THE BRIGHT FIELD by R. S. Thomas. The 3 former pupils of Ysgol Gyfun Rhydfelen collaborated on the song following a chance meeting in their hometown of ABERDARE.

LITTLE ERIS wrote GOLDEN MEADOW inspired by a painting hanging in her Grandmother's house that was linked to R. S. Thomas’ poem ‘The Bright Field’. Using the poem as inspiration, the Aberdare trio collaboratively brought the song into fruition lyrically, and embellished the song with harmonies. Golden Meadow was recorded and produced by LITTLE ERIS in her studio at THE WELLS HOTEL, CARDIFF before being mastered by electronic music expert LOZ GROVER at CRIMSON SUN AUDIO in Kent. The result is a fresh and current single with a CLASSICAL edge that fuses together the soaring vocals of CAT SOUTHALL with the unique electronic style of LITTLE ERIS.

GOLDEN MEADOW is a contemporary song with a timeless sentiment featuring two creative Welsh female musicians who’ve both been releasing music for a number of years. They were motivated into action to record the song by JENNI DAVIES who managed the smooth communications of the production and contributed the melody for a spine tingling vocalised part where SOUTHALL’S exceptional SOPRANO range is showcased.

LITTLE ERIS - GOLDEN MEADOW featuring CAT SOUTHALL Released by ORIGINAL HUMAN
SEPTEMBER 14th 2016 available from digital retailers.

www.catsouthall.com

www.originalhuman.co.uk

www.facebook.com/littleerisoff icial

www.facebook.com/catsouthall

www.facebook.com/goldemeadow20 16

The Welsh Choir of Southern California is seeking a new Music Director. Founded in 1997, the choir is a mixed SATB group of varied ethnic backgrounds, dedicated to the glories of the Welsh choral tradition, with a core group of experienced amateurs.

The successful applicant will have a strong background in choral music and the ambition and ability to challenge the choir to excel. Our new music director (he/she) will be willing to explore traditional Welsh repertoire and contemporary Welsh choral music. About a third of the choir’s repertoire is sung in Welsh, and the director will need to become familiar with Welsh pronunciation (instruction is available).

The choir rehearses for two hours on Sunday afternoons in Westchester from September through June, with occasional free Sundays, on occasions to be determined. The choir aims at performing at least one public concert in the Fall and one in the Spring (generally close to St. David’s Day, March 1 st ).

Interested applicants should submit a resume and letter of interest to the choir President, Larry Dunlop at LDu59@aol.com .

Auditions for finalists will be held on Sunday afternoons in September. Pob lwc * Good luck

The house darkens with the low pulse of a synth kick drum slowly counting out one…two…three…four… Spotlights search over and above the crowd. And then it ceases. A film begins on the large screen behind and the Super Furries walk out in hooded white jumpsuits resembling NASA outfits. They launch into ‘Slow Life’ with Gruff Rhys on a slightly out-of-tune harmonica, but he’s on pitch when he starts singing. After the first chorus Gruff dons a gigantic red motorcycle helmet, so large that he’s pressing the microphone into the eyescreen to line up with his mouth, giving a most disconcerting effect of where the sound is coming from. He’ll return to this later. Now he’s holding up signs for ‘APPLAUSE’, ‘LOUDER!’, and then ‘APE SHIT!’. The enthusiastic audience gladly takes heed. As ‘Slow Life’ winds to an end Cian Ciarán takes off the guitar he’s been strumming and takes a seat at his station of laptop, synths, and Fender Rhodes, located in the back to the left of Daf Ieuan’s drumset. Which is itself complete with two bass drums, something not witnessed by the average concertgoer in quite some time.

Gruff now straps on a lovely cherry red Gibson ES-335 and at various points throughout the show Huw Bunford is also wielding the same guitar, their left (Gruff) and right (Bunf) handedness and stage positions setting a nice frame. And it’s into ‘(Drawing) Rings Around The World’. The sound is better, you can feel the Rock more, and the crowd is very into it now. And it’s this song that will be stuck in my head over the following days. The 16mm films – provided by their friend Spencer, whom they’ll give a shout-out to after this song finishes – show pulsating concentric circles with Saturn occasionally juxtaposed over (very discombobulating) then cutting to spinning beachgoers. Up next is ‘Do Or Die’ with Bunf really laying into the fuzzy lead lines on a Les Paul now. ‘If You Don’t Want Me To Destroy You’ is announced as being 20 years old, and it strikes one how in synch they are, a subtle power in the effortlessness with which they simultaneously hit the chords.

“I don’t know if this song makes any sense in Cambridge while you’re going through a heatwave. But where we come from…” A lovely version of ‘Hello Sunshine’ follows with Gruff on acoustic guitar and one is, not for the only time, impressed with Daf’s often understated but right-on drumming. ‘Pan Ddaw’r Wawr’ is up next, from their 2000 all Welsh-language album, Mwng. The backing film mixes crashing waves with galloping horses, and the somewhat broken-up tune consolidates – with a pretty melody from Cian driving it – into an excellent, though all-too-short, groove. ‘Run! Christian, Run!’ follows with Bunf throwing in tastefully subtle phased guitar licks and Guto Pryce’s held bass notes rattling the chest. Like ‘Pan Ddaw’r Wawr’ preceding it, ‘Run! Christian, Run!’ also grows much fuller at the outro, with cool high vocal ‘oo’s and ‘wah’s. As he does a few times tonight, Bunf offers a Japanese thank you at song’s conclusion with ‘Arigato’.

‘Hometown Unicorn’ hits its first chorus that from out of nowhere becomes a few moments of glory. There’s something about it that’s just so right. The second time around doesn’t quite match it, though is still ace. Bunf’s been droning with an ebow and Gruff gives a nice fuzzy acoustic solo. ‘Zoom!’ opens with Twilight Zone-esque synth sounds, Bunf later providing proper wah-wah notes. The film shows spacey black and white concentric circles with a pink ring in the middle. It takes a while to realize these circles are chorus girls huddled close together. Gruff’s now using a vocoder for ‘Juxtapozed With U’ and before the song begins, the word ‘Massachusetts’ sounds very cool through the effect. The ‘APPLAUSE’ and ‘LOUDER’ signs are back for the intro and the crowd is swaying throughout the tune’s breezy disco. At its end Gruff holds up ‘PROLONGED APPLAUSE’.

And now one side of the sign in his hands says ‘BING’, and when flipped its reverse reads ‘BONG’. This is by way of heralding the Super Furries’ first new single in seven years, their anthem for this year’s European Championship. Recalling his antics during the opening number, Gruff explains, “It’s based on an old Welsh language folk idiom we’ve appropriated into a pop song. What also differentiates it from folk music is I’m going to attempt to sing it through my right eye. I hope I have your support. Over the years I’d tried various orifices. I’ve always found the mouth to be the most successful. Though I’m going to try out my left eye tonight too.” Referring to his gigantic helmet which he now dons, “I wear protective gear for your safety.” Headgear on, arms raised, voice over the synth drone, the guitar feeding back as the drums build, there’s excitement in the air over this new song. It immediately makes you want to dance. The bassline is very busy, one might even say frantic. The screen behind shows a 70s cheerleader film. As the song continues to grow it gets disorienting, with the band singing the title against where the “bing bong”s fall on the backing track. Until it all finally comes together. But still in a sense that feels like it’s building. Although ‘Bing Bong’ felt like it would at any moment, it never fully explodes into an all-out party on the dancefloor. Which was a little disappointing.

‘The International Language Of Screaming’ is more at pace with where ‘Bing Bong’ should’ve been. Great ‘oo’s and ‘la’s and even better freak-out screams and rock guitars. And ‘Golden Retriever’ brings the Rock even further, all bluesy stomp, driving beat, and distorted guitars. It feels Wild. The film humourously shows a dog repeatedly jumping on two legs at a fence before switching to a dancing blonde’s head and arms, her hair shaking and flipping. Mega Rock Poses at the end with guitars raised over their heads.

Introducing ‘Receptacle For The Respectable’, Gruff informs us “This next song features Paul McCartney on the recording. We can’t actually do it tonight, he sends a personal message of regrets.” (for fascinating story regarding this see here - http://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/song/receptacle-for-the-respectable/ ) A member of the audience shouts “What about Ringo?” Gruff: “I imagine he’s on a yacht, reclining…eating grapes” Bunf: “…baked beans…” Much laughter. ‘Receptacle’ isn’t as Rock as the previous two but it’s still powerful as a Pop song. Gruff hands out a plate of carrots (referencing the above linked story) right before they start digging into the outro, and taking it to a big Rock ending. Bunf sliding his guitar against the mic stand before Gruff and Guto join him, all three rubbing their guitars together in the air.

Over submarine sounds from Cian, Gruff announces it’s their “last night of the North American tour” and that this next one “goes out to anyone who’s from the mountains”. Shouts from the crowd. Gruff: “What range are you from?” Bunf: “Big or small, we’re not that bothered.” Gruff: “Or the mountains of the mind, that’s acceptable.” And into ‘Mountain People’ with its nice relaxed hypnotic drive, the bass bubbling under the power chords. Synths and low end continuing to do so even after the band stops and the electronic drums kick in. Gruff’s now kneeling in front of his pedals making guitar noise and they kick back into a stomp that you want to go on forever, even past the many minutes that it does.

This segues very nicely into the final rousing ‘The Man Don’t Give A Fuck’. And it’s powerful, especially in light of everything going on in the world right now. The band leaves the stage all too soon with Gruff and Guto simultaneously taking off their instruments. Cian stays, tweaking a spaced-out loop, a determined rhythmic pulse. And soon the rest of the Super Furries are back in full Yeti costumes complete with long blond wigs. Gruff’s suit features an eyeball over the crotch. The song’s sample is now playing and they’re giving it everything they got with the Rock guitar poses. The whole song now passing the eight minute mark, Gruff holds up a sign ‘RESIST PHONEY ENCORES!’ before ‘THANK YOU’ and ‘THE END’. With a mixture in the air of the heavy tone of this last song and the fun they’ve brought to the evening, these now very literally Super Furry Animals stroll off stage. It’s good to have them back.

Dr. Karl Jenkins is one of Britain's greatest and most versatile living composers, the author of an ocean of amazing and exalting music unlimited by genre, style or instrument. He holds a doctorate of musicology from the University of Wales and the Royal Academy of Music London. His many awards include several fellowships at various universities and an OBE (Order of the British Empire) for "services to music." He has composed for jazz bands, orchestra and voice, for advertising, film, and live performance. Dr. Jenkins is a native of the village of Penclawdd in the Gower peninsula, where his father was a school teacher and the choirmaster and organist of the Methodist church the family attended. 

Two of his most recent works are Stabat Mater (2008), an adaptation of a 13th century Roman Catholic prayer and Stella Notalis (2009), adaptations and compositions of Christmas carols from around the world.

Americymru: You'll be appearing as guest conductor at Carnegie Hall on March 6th . What are the circumstances and what will you be conducting?  

Karl: As part of Welsh Week I've been asked to conduct some of my music as the first half of the concert. I have a strong relationship with Jonathan Griffith of DCINY who has arranged the event and who has been fantastic in that he has conducted and supported much of my work in the USA. On Martin Luther King Day 2010 he performed my The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace and my Requiem. On this occasion I shall be conducting Palladio [famous for its use on a TV ad for diamonds], two choral extracts, Benedictus & Ave verum [from the Armed Man & Stabat Mater respectively] and the USA premier of my Concerto for Euphonium & Orchestra played by David Childs for whom it was written. 

Karl Jenkins Conducts "Palladio"

Americymru: You're a musician, your wife is a musician, your son is a musician, your daughter-in-law is a musician, your father was a musician, has music always been part of your family's life?  

Karl: Well obviously that is the case. My father started the ball rolling really since he was hugely influential with regard to my musical education. He taught me piano from an early age and music was always in the house, both live & recorded. My wife Carol Barrat is a celebrated music educationalist while our son, a percussionist and film composer has just scored a Bollywood movie! His wife Rosie, whom he met in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain is currently playing oboe with the London Symphony Orchetra. 

Americymru: You've said in other interviews and your biography that your father was the organist and choirmaster at your village's Methodist chapel, was he the greatest musical influence in your life? Do you think you've been the same influence in your son's life?  

Karl: What we've done as parents is introduce Jody to music and by default, the musicians life so he's quite worldly for a young man [he's 28]. We did not force him in any way and having played piano & flute as a child, he asked to play percussion when he was ten. This was his instrument and became principal in the aforementioned NYOGB, won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music [where I had studied 30 years before] and graduated with first class honours. So, he's been his own man really but I suppose it helps in that we work in different areas. What we do all share as a family is a love of all good music, regardless of categorisation, and in any genre. 

Americymru: How would you describe Welsh congregational singing to someone who's never seen it? Would you say that growing up with that musical experience effected or enriched you as a composer?  

Karl: It's obviously hard to describe music in words but what makes it unique is the rawness of the vocal sound. On the printed page it looks like any other four part hymn but the sound, to me anyway, is hugely atmospheric especially when sung in Welsh. The sound influenced my Adiemus project which had a degree of global success. This was a mix of the 'classical' but with voices that were not from the European classical tradition but more "tribal". The text was my own invented language. 

Americymru: You've performed and composed a very wide variety of instruments and styles of music and incorporate a great variety in your work, from the 13th century Roman Catholic Stabat Mater to Japanese haiku and African folk - what inspires or directs fitting these styles together in a piece? Where do you start writing music or creating music?  

Karl: My musical journey, following academic classical training at Cardiff University & the RAM, has taken in a wide variety of genres and I've arrived at what I do now by way of being a musical tourist. Essentially I am a composer who always looks outside the European tradition for influences, texts & instrumentation, particularly percussion. With regard starting a piece, if I'm setting words then I immediately have a peg on which to hang the piece. If it's instrumental or Adiemus then I'm on my own! The principle is searching around for ideas [usually using a piano] and developing what takes my fancy. A huge amount of intuition is involved, but intuition based on an armoury of acquired musical craft; harmony, counterpoint, orchestration, form et. 

Americymru: "Stabat" Mater (2008) is your adaptation of a 13th century Catholic liturgical hymn, in which you included an amazing variety of instruments and material from sources as wide as 13th century Persian poetry and the Epic of Gilgamesh, how did you come to create this, what was your process in expressing this?  

Karl: Well the established text is there already. Then much of what I have expressed above came in to play, looking outside Europe to the Middle East/Holy Land for relevant [i.e. concerning grief] ancient text, employing languages that were lingua franca at the time and including indigenous instruments in the orchestration. The eminent Welsh poet [and academic] Grahame Davies [who wrote the words for my recently composed anthem for the National Assembly of Wales] did quite a bit of research for me with regard to the literature. 

Americymru: You've said in interviews before that you "don't see any point in being a composer if you don't communicate with people," what does that mean to you? Do you feel that response in the audience is important, that response is the "product" or goal of a piece of art or music? What response do you want to create in your audiences?  

Karl: I believe music should emotionally connect with an audience; make them cry, laugh, administer 'goose bumps! I've heard far too much music with 'one man and his dog' in the audience, the piece never heard again and the event receiving "critical acclaim". 

Americymru: Wales seems to produce a lot of musical artists who would be (or are) described as "crossover", yourself included - do you think Wales has a musical character or tradition that inspires or tends toward experimentation or something like hybridization, a lack of adherence to artificial limitations of genre?  

Karl: I don't like to use the term cross-over. I'm not sure what it means and I've explained what I do above. I don't think the Welsh like music particularly. What they do like are singers which is not necessarily the same thing. I like to think that what I do is at least individual and at least it's new. Most albums and repertoire [not just by Welsh artists] are a series of singers singing the same songs, songs that everyone knows. Many such artists are described as opera singers when they have never sang in an opera in their lives. At least good modern 'pop' has more integrity since it is newly composed. 

Americymru: Did you have particular creative goals as an artist and if you did, have you achieved them? What would you like to look back on at the end of your life and see that you did or created?  

Karl: Following my journey, I have come relatively late in life to what I do now, but the corollary is that I would not have arrived at this point without this musical tourism and the influence and skills that have come with it. There is still much to do. I'm setting the Gloria text for a Royal Albert Hall premier in July and there is much more to do. 

Americymru: Is there any particular instrument you especially like to compose for? If so, what instrument and why?  

Karl: Sounds pompous [which I'm not] but my instrument is the orchestra [& choir] and the rich palette of colours it provides. 

Americymru: Is there any one work or piece that you created that you're particularly proud of or happy to have done? If so, what is it and why?  

Karl: The worrying thing is that some of my most popular pieces were kind of written quickly and which I didn't set great store by. However, I suppose the Armed Man because of it's impact but I think there is better music in the Requiem. 

Americymru: What music do you listen to for pleasure?  

Karl: I listen far less than I did, most certainly because I'm always writing and I need a break! Favourites would be Mahler, Strauss, Wagner, Bach, Stravinsky, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Weather Report, Steely Dan........ 

AmeriCymru: Hi Craig and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. Can you tell us a little about your forthcoming visit to the US and in particular your headline performance at NAFOW 2014 in Minneapolis?

Craig: We are really looking forward to coming over to the US. We have been a few times before, but only to New York and Washington DC, so we cant wait to see other parts of America. We are performing 5 times on our tour, firstly we have a reception at the British Consulate in Chicago, then we have a concert in Algona, Iowa, we then perform twice at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago and last but certainly not least we finish at the NAFOW in Minneapolis.

AmeriCymru: What can attendees expect from Only Men Aloud at the Festival? Can you give us any sneak previews of your program for this performance?

Craig: As with every concert Only Men Aloud do, there will be a wide variety in styles of music. We will be singing traditional Welsh hymns and folksongs all the way through to some pop favourites and music theatre numbers, all done with our unique Only Men Aloud twist.

AmeriCymru: How did the choir come to be formed and where are you based?

Craig: Only Men Aloud was formed in the year 2000, when Tim wanted to start a new group to inject some new blood in to the male voice choir tradition. He wanted to make it more appealing to a wider audience and make it younger and fresher - ensuring that this great tradition continues for many years to come. We are based in and around Cardiff in South Wales, but have performed all over the world.

AmeriCymru: The choir has been through some changes over the years. Can you describe its current composition and repertoire?

Craig: It has indeed. When we one BBC Last Choir Standing in 2008, there we 19 members of the choir. In September 2013 we saw a complete reinvention of the group, as the choir became a "honed and toned 8-piece vocal ensemble.  This has enabled us to put sound like at the absolute core of the group. We needed to keep things fresh and be the very best we could. It has enabled us to take on more opportunities that we would have otherwise had to turn down with a larger number of singers - but we hope the quality of our performance has not changed and hopefully it is even better.

AmeriCymru: Care to tell us a little about your performance at the 2012 Olympic Games? That must have been a momentous occasion.

Craig: Singing at the Olympic Games opening ceremony was an incredible experience. We were singing at the very moment that the olympic flame - or the cauldron as it was called in London - was lit. We were stood on the hill side or Tor, surrounded by the flags of every nation, looking down into the stadium with was crammed full with every competitor of the games. We had the best seats in the house, and once we were finished, we remained on the fake hillside to watch the most amazing firework display we had ever seen.

AmeriCymru: What would you say has been the choirs proudest moment or most outstanding achievement to date?

Craig: I don't think we would be doing what we are doing now without us winning BBC's Last Choir Standing. It was an intense summer back in 2008 as it completely took over our lives, but what has followed in the subsequent years has been all down to that success. Tours, an album deal and winning a Classical Brit award have all happened due to our hard work that summer.

AmeriCymru: You also run The Aloud Charity. Can you tell us something of your organisation's work? What unique opportunities does it offer for Welsh youngsters?

Craig: When Tim registered the name Only Men Aloud, he also registered the name Only Boys Aloud, in the hope that one day we could set up a choir for teenage boys. Just over four years ago, this became a reality and since then it has gone from strength to strength. We now have ten choirs across south Wales and have 180, 14-19 year olds on our books. Along side this, three years ago, we started Only Kids Aloud. This is to work with boys and girls from the ages of 4 up to 14. Through this we have given numerous school workshops for teachers and pupils, set up a pan-Wales Choir that has visited Russia and South Africa and worked with hundreds of local school kids to perform in the National Eisteddfod. Just over a year ago, we set up and registered The Aloud Charity and now this looks after all of the work we do with the Boys and the Kids.  

AmeriCymru: Can you tell us a little about your most recent album 'Only Men Aloud Unplugged'?

Craig: Only Men Aloud Unplugged is our fourth album and is something slightly different. The album is just us eight singers, in a room with a piano and no amplification. It has given a more intimate style and we hope you enjoy the stripped back approach we have gone for. We have put some beautiful music on there, that ranges from Welsh songs like Pantyfedwen and Hiraeth to classics such as Lennon and McCartney's Blackbird. The album will be exclusively on sale after our live performances in America and on our tour in the UK.

AmeriCymru: What's next for Only Men Aloud? New recordings, performances?

Craig: We have a busy few months ahead of us after we get back from the US. We have a 12 date UK wide Christmas Tour in December, we are hoping to make a TV programme in the autumn and then launch and make our fifth album in the new year. There will also be a Spring Tour in Wales in March.

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the members and readers of AmeriCymru?

Craig: We would like to thank you all for your support of Only Men Aloud over the years and we hope some of you are getting to see us on our trip to the States. We wouldn't be doing what we do without the support of our fans, right across the world.

AmeriCymru spoke to Welsh legend Max Boyce - " I have another big concert tour starting in October until December following a very successful TV programme celebrating my 70th Birthday which was actually had the highest viewing ratings that year! I am also in the process of writing my autobiography for publication when I finally finish it! "

.....

AmeriCymru:  Hi Max and many thanks for agreeing to be interviewed by AmeriCymru. I read in a previous interview that you have "always loved folk music and poetry". Are there any particular musicians or poets who influenced or inspired you?

Max: I would probably say Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie & Ewan MacColl.

AmeriCymru:   You worked as a coal miner in the 1960's. How and to what extent did this influence your music?

Max: I did indeed and this influenced my music massively.  To write accurately about your subject matter you have to experience it personally. For me, it was that special camaraderie and sharing the same dangers that really enabled me to write my songs with first-hand experience and which ultimately has given my songs their poignancy. All great works, whether they be paintings or songs are at their best when created from personal experience.

AmeriCymru:  What can you tell us about the night your Live in Treorchy album ( 1974 ) was recorded?

Max: Well it was put together very hastily so not foreseen at all! Initially I was selling my tickets for 50p just to get an audience for my show as I needed them for my chorus songs!  I was in fact giving them away and think people only came to see me out of sympathy!  It was the audience’s spontaneous reactions that made this album the success that it was. I made a conscious decision to choose a place where I had never been before so I got a fresh reaction and it went fantastically well!

Max Boyce Live At Treorchy

AmeriCymru:  How did it feel to go straight to number 1. in the charts with your second album 'We All Had Doctors Papers'?

Max: Unbelievable! I still find it strange when I think back. Wherever I was in the country I would always buy a copy of The Melody Maker and The New Music Express just to see if I was still up there!  I remember seeing my name on the list ABOVE Rod Stewart and The Beatles! Totally amazing.

AmeriCymru:  Did you ever think that your song 'Hymns And Arias' would become anthemic? How did that song come to be written?

Max: No I didn’t. No-one could foresee that. It became a song of the people which just cannot be manufactured.  Funnily enough the Irish and Scottish anthemic folk songs ‘Fields of Anthenry’ and ‘Flower of Scotland’ were actually written at a very similar time to when I wrote ‘Hymns and Arias’. I had just been to Twickenham and was writing topical songs. So I basically wrote about my memories  of the whole trip and probably did it in about 2 hours!  I wish I could change a line or two today but obviously cannot!

AmeriCymru:  You have performed all over the world. What was your most memorable performance and why?

Max: Probably Wembley before the Wales vs England game. It was a home game and should have been in Cardiff but they were building the stadium for the World Cup. Such an iconic venue with 80,000 people singing along..wonderful.

AmeriCymru:  You toured Australia in 2003 during the rugby World Cup. Any memories you would like to share?

Max: Performing at Sydney Opera House was tremendous and I had Katherine Jenkins as my guest. She performed one song and then was very quickly signed up after that!

Hymns and Arias

AmeriCymru:  You have visited and performed in the States in the past. How did you enjoy your time in the US?

Max: I absolutely loved it and I loved the different culture.  Also what a privilege afforded to very few, if any, to play for 2.5 months with The Dallas Cowboys. To be picked by Coach Landry to play offence in the first game in the Texas Stadium against the Green Bay Packers is something I will never ever forget.  Following on from the success of that, I was then also asked to ride bulls in the rodeo and again, was very touched by the similar camaraderie that they had, as we did in coal mining, in sharing the same dangers.  Bull riding is America’s truest sport I think and an experience that I will treasure always.

AmeriCymru:  What's next for Max Boyce? Tours? Recordings?

Max: I have another big concert tour starting in October until December following a very successful TV programme celebrating my 70th Birthday which was actually had the highest viewing ratings that year! I am also in the process of writing my autobiography for publication when I finally finish it!

AmeriCymru:  Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru? 

Max: Please carry on with the missionary work and come back and see us soon – we miss you!

AmeriCymru spoke to Welsh musician and Taran founder Gerard KilBride about the recent S4C series 'Ffwrnes Gerdd' .

"The programme, an original idea by Gerard KilBride and produced by ffilmiau’r ffwrnes, continues the tunechain series and features a wide variety of styles and performances by different performers in the beguiling atmosphere of the Ffwrn café and restaurant at Fishguard, Pembrokeshire."

AmeriCymru: Hi Gerard and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. What is Ffwrnes Gerdd and what was your involvement with it?

Gerard:   I am the ideas originator, Producer, Musical director, tea boy and general dogs body.

Ffwrnes Gerdd is the first ever co-production between Arts Council Wales and S4C, and continues a series of short films I made in  2012 with Rhodri Smith, supported by trac  called Tunechain/ Clustfeiniau.

These short films start with Robert Evans who discusses how he became involved in Welsh folk music and then he plays a tune he learnt from me. It then continues to follow the chain  from musician to musician, a journey around Wales, discovering the aural tradition. They are absolutely beautiful but very low budget filmed and recorded on iphones.

They were a great success, but limited by their low technology approach,  so I approached ACW to make another set of films, using Welsh fiddlers, playing Welsh music on Welsh made violins. We also had help from Gethin Scourfield, another fiddler from the 80's band Penderyn and a legend in Welsh TV, producer of Welsh language hit Hinterland. He is working on the next series as I write this. So we approached S4C with the same idea but with Welsh singers. When S4C and ACW  heard that we were working on two different projects they asked if they could co-produce and share some of the content? At the same time Theatr Mwldan, Aberteifi, and I had been planning to tour the Songchain/Cylchcanu  idea using 10 artists from the films, touring Welsh arts centres and theatres.

This has just finished and was a great success - a game changer for Welsh music in Welsh theatres. We intend to tour again next year, with big plans for a collaborative project in Patagonia next year.

AmeriCymru: How many other Welsh musicians were involved with the project?

Gerard: In total  33 Welsh musicians, all masters of their crafts and touring.

AmeriCymru: Where can readers go online to view the programs or excerpts from them?

Gerard: We did a re-edit of all the tunechain clips for Lorient Interceltic 2013 and they are here in one programme :

Tunechain Clips

Ffwrnes Gerdd, the two main programmes are on s4c's clic channel:

Program 1

and

Program 2

A ll links will always be at www.pibgyrn.com and http://www.trac-cymru.org/

AmeriCymru: When did you first become interested in Welsh traditional music? What are your musical influences?

Gerard: Both my parents played music and were instrumental in the Welsh music revival back in the 60-70s here in south Wales, so they were my first influences.  They ran a dance band called Juice of Barley for thirty years so we all grew up with music all around us, my brothers and I learnt via osmosis.

Bernard is one of the fiddlers included in the films, a great fiddler and Dan who also played a big part in Taran, is currently the director of trac, Wales' Folk Development organisation.

My dad was a Ship's Captain who used to bring back tunes and whiskey from all over the world, we laugh thinking that a fiddle playing ship's Captain brings new meaning to the Mari Celeste.

My early Welsh influences were bands like Yr Hwntws who I was very proud to play the fiddle with, Pedwar yn y bar and Plethyn .  Bob Evans who starts the tunechain and was also on the songchain tour, was a huge influence on my fiddle playing, he taught me there was "no such thing as a bad tune."  But many great musicians passed through our doors all leaving a tune or two behind,  it wasn't all plain sailing as we all rebelled and formed a punk rock band, but gradually our parents won us back with the offer of steady paid work in their dance band.

I learnt the fiddle when I was about 18 and after trying to make one, being a carpenter and joiner, decided I would learn to repair and make them. So I went to Newark School of Violin Making where I met  the amazing Shetland fiddle player Ewan Thompson, who to this day is my biggest musical influence. He is a living legend, and a thoroughly lovely bloke.

AmeriCymru: Would you agree that Welsh folk and traditional music suffers by comparison with Scottish and Irish music in terms of international exposure? If so what do you think are the reasons for that?

Gerard: Not really, it is nowhere near as popular, which isn't a bad thing, but I think it's one of Wales's best kept secrets. If it was hugely popular it wouldn't be as special. History played a huge part. Ireland and Scotland almost lost their language but kept their music, in Wales it was the opposite. Wales as a nation has not promoted or supported its traditional music, comparing Welsh music to Irish and Scottish is also I feel, like comparing different fruits, an orange will never be an apple, sorry if that's obscure?
 
AmeriCymru: Is Welsh traditional music currently undergoing a renaissance?

Gerard: There are lots of young talented people, taking up instruments and putting the spirit into it and a lot of classical musicians joining in, which I have some mixed feelings about. I don't feel written music is the way to learn traditional music, but I could go on about that for hours. L et's not make it too popular

Welsh Pibgyrn By Coppop (Own work) [ CC-BY-SA-3.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons

AmeriCymru: Your site,  www.pibgyrn.com  contains a wealth of information about the oldest of Welsh instruments, the pibgyrn. What advice would you give people who are seeking to become acquainted with it? Where would you acquire a pibgyrn?

Gerard: Many people think the pibgorn is a simple instrument, and feel that if they play the recorder or whistle then this instrument will be an easy transition.....not many who come from this route persist.

At first it is the most frustrating instrument to learn and to keep in playing condition. Moisture/ spit and condensation are the enemies and new players rarely understand how to manage this moisture.

It was for this  reason that I made www.pibgyrn.com. As a professional instrument maker in Wales I found there was a huge myth and lack of decent information on the pibgorn. Those who knew how to play it were not keen to pass it on. This has changed now and the site is set up to dispel many of those myths.

Most of the players worldwide input into the facebook group here with lots of good advice,

https://www.facebook.com/groups/162020927154723/

The best advice I have heard so far is, until you understand fully how to adjust a pibgorn reed "do not touch or alter that reed!". Also moisture is your enemy. Learn to circular breath, and cross finger to save air, as they do with the Basque alboka.

The finest maker of Pibgyrn is Jonathan Shorland, his horn carving is second to none and like a fine porcelain, they are generally louder than most other makers instruments. He can be tracked down on the internet, he doesn't advertise, look for the band Celtech.

Gafin Morgan also a member of the band Taran, has made a pre cast plastic Pibgorn which works. It is available here www.pibgorn.co.uk . He again is a lovely man who has spent years trying to promote the instrument and  through his efforts will continue to improve the manufacturing techniques.

AmeriCymru: You are the leading light and founding member of Welsh Celtic band Taran. For the benefit of any of our readers who are not familiar with it can you tell us a little about the 'Hotel Rex' album released in 2011?

Gerard: Hotel Rex, was a huge undertaking, with 26 performers from 3 different countries, and took just over two years to make. I am very proud of the outcome although it was not to the general publics taste. It is still Available on itunes and CD baby.

It starts with a sample of Jimmy Hendrix and ends with Dylan Thomas reading " and death shall have no dominion".  It was the second CD for the band Taran, who mixed samples of ancient poetry, bagpipes and  beats to Welsh traditional music.

AmeriCymru: What's next for Gerard Kilbride and Taran? Any new recordings or tours in the pipeline?

Gerard: We will be touring the Songchain/Cylchcanu project again next year, and I would like to continue to make short films about music. I have big ideas to include more English speaking Welsh artists and do some more collaborative work. Patagonia for the Mimosa's 150th landing celebration would be exciting. Members of Taran continue to work together in different outfits and if a project came up that interests us we would be back together in a shot. I am busy making and restoring fiddles and run several web e-commerce solutions for high end violin dealers. I am also trying my best to bring up a young family.

I would love to do more recording and playing, but no longer have the time to commit to something as large and all consuming as Taran.

Also I have another long term research project on violin bridges www.violinbridges.co.uk

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the members and readers of AmeriCymru?

Gerard: Thanks for your interest and I hope you enjoy some of these projects. I would love to come back to the States sometime as I was blown away by the sheer scale and beauty of the place.

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Gwenno strolls on stage with no fanfare and presses play on a rhythmic throbbing bass line. Kick snare kick snare enter and pulse along, white noise, and a simple three-note synth melody. Gwenno knows how to let these things build and she’s slowly bringing in the elements of the title track of her Welsh Music Prize-winning album, Y Dydd Olaf.

The set-up is minimal, just her behind a makeshift table on which sit her synthesizer and effects pedals, but the sound is huge.

Next up is single ‘Patriarchaeth’, a fantastic pop number especially with its ‘oo’s at the end. The songs (barring the final number, which is sung in Cornish) are all in Welsh and Gwen introduces this one as “this song is called ‘Patriarchaeth’ which means ‘patriarchy’ which means a really shit time for everyone”.

Despite the heaviness of the themes, there’s playfulness - and humor in her talking about them - which makes for the richness of the listening experience. Gwenno smilingly announces the third song - a cover of 80s Welsh electronic music pioneer Malcolm Neon’s ‘Nefolaidd’ – “a pretty happy song in contrast to most of my own”. The title means ‘Heavenly’ and, along with Gwen being a big fan of Neon’s work, it's a nice nod to Heavenly Recordings, the label who picked up Y Dydd Olaf last year. A studio version of ‘Nefolaidd’ can be found on the bonus disc of the album along with b-sides and remixes.

There’s a noticeable stylistic contrast as soon as she begins, this is stark, 80s cold wave. Gwen’s voice has warmed up now and it’s interesting to hear her sing a melody that isn’t her own. She takes a different approach tonally, the pronunciation of the ‘o’s in ‘o-o-o-o’ section especially grab one’s ear. It all comes as an intriguing surprise, not least the end section which jumps through hyperspace into a frenetic stabbing outro.

“This one was inspired by Chelsea Manning. It’s about exposing war crimes, media manipulation, happy stuff”. An ominous single synth note crescendos as ‘Calon Peiriant’ (The Heart Of The Machine) begins to form under it. It’s lovely how Gwen’s vocals sit here in the midst of the propulsive forward motion of its juggernaut rhythm and the jarring, abrasive synths floating in and out of the action.

‘Sisial Y Môr’ fittingly (as it translates to ‘The Whispering Sea’) begins as an ocean of sound. This ethereal undulating bed, evoking a twilight psychedelic shoreline, with aggressive swarms passing over and thru. I’ve seen this song performed numerous times and it always seems to appear in a different body, and sounding more audacious than on record. The sonic theme continues through the outro as huge waves wash over. And then there’s even a cool extension tacked on the end, a captivating melody underneath with its notes sounding like they’re breaking apart.

“This song is about the power of people when they get together. Change can happen, we’ve seen it happen.” And ‘Chwyldro’ (‘Revolution’) starts off a cappella over spacey effects, slow, drawn out, before the tempo kicks up and into the actual song.

Gwen seems really into it now despite “having been up for two days” (their journey began with a four-and-a-half hour bus ride from Cardiff to Gatwick Airport the previous morning, arriving in Boston the night before the gig) and the positivity of her introductory words is very much reflected in the performance of this excellent tune, one of the most badass grooves of recent years. Gwenno smiles throughout and wonderfully trills the note going into the second chorus. The song ends as it began, a cappella.

Gwen then tells us about the sci-fi novel that inspired her album of the same name, Y Dydd Olaf by Welsh nuclear scientist Owain Owain. A dystopian world where everyone is getting turned into robots, the narrator writing the book in the form of a diary and only escaping the mechanical overlords’ notice by nature of it being in Welsh, which they can’t understand.

This is by way of introducing ‘Fratolish Hiang Perpeshski’, its title being the nonsense phrase the narrator repeats to himself as he loses his mind at Y Dydd Olaf’s end. “So this is the final dance before he himself gets turned into a clone and loses his soul. It’s also inspired by major label pop music…”

Gwen stops for a second and smiles, “I mean that in a complimentary way.” And ‘Fratolish’ is Fierce. Ethereal and Fierce. A magnificent dance tune. It sounds great in this club setting. Gwen leaning over her Korg to let forth a rad arpeggiated bit in the extended break before the outro. And with a sweep it’s done.

Which brings us to last song, ‘Amser’. Which is sung in Cornish, “a Celtic language not dissimilar to Welsh” and Gwen tells how the UK government has just cut all of the minimal funding there was for the Cornish language.

A tri-linguist herself, Gwen talks passionately about how important language is to her and to everyone. And what follows is a spirited version of the tune, a meditation on Time, the song standing proud against Time’s passing and decay, which is all we can really do. And this is evident in the jubilant musical turbulence of the song’s ending where there are usually just vocals, continuing on before Gwen exits the stage to two repeated blips.

A great performance which really had a powerful effect on the crowd, who all lined up to buy merchandise and talk to Gwenno post-gig.

I overheard one gentleman saying ‘Thank you so much for playing. We get lots of shows coming through Boston but this was really unique and interesting.”

And a friend commented to me ‘That was great. I thought there would some barrier with the songs all being in Welsh, but there wasn’t at all.” Which goes to show the power of music and reinforce one of Gwenno’s central messages - that it’s about people coming together to communicate with each other and make things happen.

Upcoming Shows In Brooklyn, Washington D.C. and Durham N.C.

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Photo by Johnny Nigma

AmeriCymru: Hi Eris and many thanks for agreeing to be interviewed by AmeriCymru. Please tell us a little about your new single 'So Many Nights".

Eris: Hi thanks for the interview! The new single So Many Nights is the first of 3 singles produced with Charlie Hoskyns that I will be releasing through a label I have set up called Original Human Records. These single have been developed from lofi demos into full scale productions with high tv/radio specs with a view to getting the sounds of little eris out to a wider audience.

The So Many Nights single is a harmless but loaded love song based on a true experience of being hurt by love. Its nice that the single has resulted in turning a difficult time of my life into positive life experience whereby I have rewarded by people enjoying the song and the video. A bad experience in love has created a positive result for myself! We had a lot of fun making the music video for the single. I set my imagination free and wrote a ridiculous script with 11 scenes and lots of outfits and locations and props. We succeeded in manifesting the idea into reality through collaboration with local artists. My friends have been very supportive particularly textile artist Elen Mai Wyn jones who found us the editor in LA and helped with a lot of the styling for the video. My boyfriend James has also been very supportive, as a professional animator he did all the storyboards and the single artwork for me. As a first release the single has brought a lot of people together, there were around 20 people involved in making the video for it and they all worked on the project voluntarily. The single is out now and available as a digital download, the video has also been released online and can be found on the main video streaming sites.

AmeriCymru: What is your musical background? How did you become a performer?

Eris: Throughout my life music has always been there. I remember examining a speaker at the age of two to try and work out where the multiple voices were coming from when my parents played their records, I was very sensitive to harmonies. My mother also used to play guitar and sing to me as a baby Songs like Are you going to Scarborough Fayre. I was born the daughter of a striking miner and music by The Specials and The Police filled our house I remember the stillness in the air, stone floors and the sounds of ska music. I remember seeing Queen on a tiny tv set playing Radio Gaga live at Wembley. I was always intrigued by music and very conscious of my interaction with it. I went to a welsh medium school which had a strong identity for drama, arts and culture, In Wales we have Eisteddfods in schools where pupils are encouraged to compete in singing and recitals. There was a lot of singing and harmonies that I enjoyed. I would often sing at home with my sister duets we had learnt at school, we even sung a song from school in my aunties wedding! In school I also learnt the violin, harp and piano to a basic level which gave me a loose understanding of music that I applied to other instruments in later years. As a teenager in Aberdare I would go with my friends on the weekends to clubs in Swansea and Cardiff and got into house music. Before that we also used to like going to raves in Porthcawl called Southern Exposure where they played all sorts of underground dance music but mainly happy hardcore! I was very inspired and awakened by these new worlds beyond the dreariness of life in Aberdare. I left home at 16 and moved to Swanse where I made friends with a group of people who were also studying at Neath college where I was doing A levels. These people were all on the performing arts course. I was intrigued by their scruffiness they all seemed much older with beards and individuality. I thought the guitars were really sexy I loved hanging around bands rehearsing. I wanted to be like them scruffy and free instead of a townie as they described me. I started listening to bands and I got really into the early chilli peppers music and really enjoyed the warmth of guitars etc. I decided to pick up an instrument. I tried the guitar but got frustrated with the intricate chords and finger positions. I picked up the bass, a friend Chris Tucker taught me a basic funk riff and I soon started picking out bass lines from the chilli pepper albums which was a great way to learn as these funk bass lines were quite busy and set a high standard for me. For my 17th birthday my Dad bought me my first bass. A couple of years later I went to University where I formed a band playing on a 5 string bass we played experimental progressive space funk and did a few local gigs. After graduating I moved to London and joined a female fronted grunge band as their bass player. Around this time I got really into The Pixies and had moved from funk bass lines and slap bass to using a plectrum and playing a dirtier sounding bass. After a few years I got really homesick and moved back to Wales. I had over the years been collecting bass lines I had written and decided to try and record them as songs with vocals. I enlisted the help of Lee Harvey an excellent guitarist who lived in my street, we soon found a drummer and started to put some songs together. I took the role of vocalist and started writing lyrics to go with the bass lines. Singing and playing bass at the time took a lot of practice but I got there in the end and we toured the UK as Freaky Fortnight and became involved in the DIY punk music scene. The music we played was psychedelic bluesy grunge and different to all the other punk bands we played with but I think they liked our punk attitude and raw sound. Around this time I was introduced to the music of a band called Crass, coming from Aberdare and being the daughter of a miner (the last gig they did was in Aberdare a benefit for the miners) I could really relate to the lyrics of Crass and it crystallised my outlook on politics and social issues and also explained a lot of the poverty I witnessed as a child. In 2008 Freaky fortnight after 4 years of hard work disintegrated suddenly in a puff of frustration and bad feeling We had recorded an amazing album and it felt we were on the verge of something big. To see the band fall apart of this stage was very upsetting for me as we had put a lot of money time and energy into getting it to a good level. I vowed to never rely on other musicians again! There was a computer in my house with some software on it so I carried on writing songs anyway, recording bass and vocals and then putting very basic guitar over it. I used reason4 to create drums and began experimenting with the synthesisers. My first recording as Little Eris was played on Adam Walton on BBC Radio Wales and I got invited to perform live at the Cardiff SWN festival by some local promoters who heard me on the radio. I had not anticipated playing the music live I put a shout out online for some help with video projection and Johnny Nigma came forward and has helped with the project ever since. The live shows have been as organic, natural and experimental as my musical journey, I involved other musicians and performers who I had met on my journey to bring the music to life onstage. Over the years a lot of the live stuff has been improvisational and attracted comparisons to art bands such as Psychic TV. I continued to record demos and electronic music and synthesisers began to play a bigger role in my creations. I now understand how resonance, oscillation, repetitive beats and frequencies can have a powerful effect on listeners. To me I see myself not as a performer and definitely not an entertainer but something more intangible. I think I am an artist first and foremost and music is my creative journey that has influenced how I experience the world.

Photo by Matt Kirby

AmeriCymru: What can you tell us about the Great Wreck and Roll Cirkus and the Unemployed Daytime Disco?

Eris: The Great Wreck and Roll Cirkus is a multi arts event started 10 years ago by SCRAP Records (sub cultural radikal arts productions) with a strong history of underground music from the traveller scene. I played Wreck & Roll shows a few times with my old band Freaky Fortnight. Our drummer was also in a band called Crowzone fronted by Gary DS founder of SCRAP Records and organiser of The Great Wreck & Roll Cirkus. Playing these shows was a big eye opener as back then I had only played in music venues with other guitar bands and these parties were multi genre events that started with live bands and then turned into a freaky ravey experience. These were big productions with massive rigs adorned with heavy handmade backdrops. There was a sense of real earthiness, it was a very real scene, real to the roots to the core. I never forgot how awesome these shows were. I was fortunate enough to contact Gary DS again some years after Freaky Fortnight had split. He mentioned he was planning a show in Cardiff and asked if I would like to be involved. I jumped at the chance and that show turned into a UK tour that took place in March and April of 2011. Being part of this was really life changing. It was amazing to play on the big stages with excellent underground bands who had been around for decades. The vibrations and musical inspiration was brilliant as the shows spanned all genres of heavy and mixed up music with dance performances, slamming DJs, circus vibe and of course all the handmade painted banners and big sound systems. After the tour I spent some time with Gary at his remote hideaway jamming and talking. I admired his respect for nature and ideas and energy. He had a relentless enthusiasm for his lifetime of creative projects. Through his music and the Wreck n Roll cirkus I think he changed a lot of lives. He was determined to bring the underground talents into the public arena by booking shows in large venues and helping to get new bands on the road. He was planning on making a really cool film too which would have been culturally important during these times. He was someone I really looked up to and was doing so much good work. Gary died tragically in an accident in Jamaica a few months after that last Wreck N Roll tour ended. He was a really amazing person at the heart of a scene with the most integrity, the real deal, a real punk rock legend. A lot of people including myself will always be holding the spirit and vibe of Gary in our hearts, it will never die.

The Unemployed Daytime Disco is an event founded in 2010 by myself and a friend called Adam Johannes. The underlying intent was to have a good time whilst being on the dole however we soon realised there were other benefits to the unemployed people of Cardiff. We provide a platform for performers, sometimes it feels like we are unofficial spokespeople for the unemployed as press often contact us for our opinions on the current situation in the UK. We also recognise wider social benefits to what we were doing. We nurture new talent and helped performers gain confidence. We help tackle social isolation and depression in unemployed people by bringing people together. We have guest acts supporting the disco such as Alan McGee founder of Creation records and published author Rachel Tresize who have achieved success through creativity. To celebrate the end of the Mayan Calender we had an electro DJ come over from Mexico. The discos have brought a refreshing cultural edge to the city, and many creative collaborations (and romantic ones!) have been spawned at the unemployed disco.

AmeriCymru: You are currently involved in a fascinating project based at the Wels Hotell in Riverside, Cardiff. Care to tell us more?

Eris: I moved in to the Wells Hotel in 2008. I had to find somewhere to live due to a break up, I had no money life was no great at that point. I found the flat to rent online and intrigued by the photo of the view of the Millennium Stadium through old oval windows I came to view it. I fell in love with the building immediately there were spirals carved in stone, a big dragon at the top of the building, to me it looked like a spooky fairytale castle and I moved in straight away! There are 6 flats in the Wells Hotel but back then none of the residents really bothered with each other. The place was becoming run down with rubbish being dumped outside, the energies were not great. A man was even found unconscious outside on a dumped settee with a syringe in his arm. The building became run down and the professional residents left. Some unsavoury characters moved in and caused damage to a flat downstairs. By early 2012 they left there were only 2 of us living in the building on the top floor. After having hassle from local gangs and previous tenants who had passed keys to drug addicts were accessing the building, my neighbour and I took matters into our own hands. We put a big lock on the front door and secured the building. We realised that the flats were not in good condition to be rented by the Estate Agents. I contacted the landlord and offered to help find good tenants who would take on the flats for what they could afford to pay. We gained access to the flats and I moved a group of people in who were performing with the little eris live band at that time. The place erupted as the newcomers revelled in the freedom the building offered. After a few months it became unproductive here the partying became disruptive, and some residents were asked to leave. After months of chaos things finally settled down and we have a good group of creative people here now who have mutual respect and together we can organise happenings using the whole building. Our first project was called Little Tokyo we opened the building to the public and webstreamed a live performance / installation into the Tate Modern oil tanks as part of Tracey Moberleys Tweet me Up exhibition. A welsh DIY label called Afiach has also launched from the Wells Hotel that has hosted live bands and organised graffiti artists to do amazing wall murals outside. I did the So Many Nights single launch party here as part of an art show called The Ghost Crystal where we projected the music video on the building next door and had performances under the moon with a fire in the yard. We are safe here for at least the next 12months while the building is being restored to its former glory and aim to make the most of this time by having consciousness expanding events and exhibitions. Having everyone under one roof means we can share ideas and skills and networks, it feels exciting to be part of what is being created here.

Little Eris with band members James Hill and Jasamine Jackdaw - Photo by Photo Evolution

AmeriCymru: What are you listening to at the moment? Any recommendations?

Eris: As a musician I am often asked what I am listening to but to be honest I dont really actively seek out new music. I am often to directed to music having had comparisons drawn to particular acts. I really like the creative life of Genesis P Orridge and the theories of chaos magicians such as Grant Morrison. I have been listening a lot to binaural tones and learning about frequencies. Frequencies can actually heal diseases there is a lot more to music than most people realise. I have been listening recently to more hip hop than usual, Hieroglyphics are one act that have caught my attention. Other music I have been listening to recently is music by electro producer Legowelt. I also really like discovering music from Cardiff eg welsh language anarchist hip hop duo Llwybr Llaethog who live nearby, and Euros Childs I love his feel good sing alongy song called Painting Pictures. An album I listened to a lot this year is called Tales of Terror by Inner Terrestrials, there are a couple of stand out songs on there and the whole album generally has a warm sound with good musicianship. I am very random when it comes to music consumption its often what appears before me, what is recommended to me by friends or what I hear around me. Live acts I have enjoyed this year are the underground heavy sounds of Tribazik and Dead Silence both of whom I met on the Wreck n Roll tour. Ive also been enjoying the music of Princes Chelsea recently this year. I often look at what other female electro artists are doing as a point of reference I was even checking out the Welsh Lady Gaga tribute Donna Marie on youtube last week as I was interested to see how she cleverly managed to create scaled down versions of Gagas extravagant live productions for smaller pubs and clubs.

AmeriCymru: Where can people go to hear/purchase your music online?

Eris: The single So Many Nights is available to buy from CDBaby and other music download sites. There is also a free album of demos that can be found online from 2009 called Molecules R Us that might interest some music fans.

The new So Many Nights music video is a good introduction to the world of little eris

AmeriCymru: What's next for Eris Kaoss?

Eris: With two more singles to release in the coming months I am looking to creating new music videos and hopefully reach more people as an artist. I hope collaborations at the Wells Hotel will continue to blossom. I am looking forward to developing Original Human as a company to release singles by other artists too for example artist Jacqueline Janine Jones has an amazing track called Deeper Skies that we hope to release through the label in 2013. My partner James Dawson and I also plan to collaborate on a drum and bass project called Liquid Eris. My favourite thing to do is create lofi demos so whatever I am doing with the projects I am always recording new sounds and loops, and putting together rough recordings. I also try to play lots of smaller shows where I can experiment with new material. So I will just be carrying on chaos as usual.

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?

Eris: The world needs imaginative people and creativity. Collaborating with others is so rewarding and it can be done with or without a budget. Share your ideas freely plant them like seeds. Be unique there is no right or wrong way to express yourself, always be mindful of the energies that are being created but regardless of what is going around you never lose sight of your dreams! I am really into the idea of creating your own reality I put a lot of theory into practice over the past few years and have seen good results so I would recommend that people look into what we are capable of as human beings. I hope we see a world one day where our human potential is released, there is so much out there that is being kept from us tesla energy, orgone energy, natural cures, how we can heal ourselves etc. I think these things are so important and we can all be educating ourselves and each other. It is music that has led me to many discoveries relating to the mind, body, spirit and our environments. They are inextricably linked to music in both the experience of it and in the creation of it. .

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Interview by Ceri Shaw Ceri Shaw on Google+

AmeriCymru: Hi Lleuwen and many thanks for agreeing to talk to AmeriCymru. Your new album 'Tan' was released on April 4th. Care to tell us a little more about it?

Lleuwen: Of course! Tan is basically what I've been working on this past year with Breton genius musician and producer, Vincent Guerin. I first came to Brittany to perform at the Lorient Interceltic Festival 2008 and once I immediately fell in love with the atmosphere and language because I think, in a way, I felt great empathy with the Breton people. Then in 2009 I was fortunate to win the Creative Wales Award by Arts Council Wales. I had agreed with the arts council that I'd write songs, record an album and then come back to Wales to perform this new material. I feel blessed to have received that award, and "Tan" would not have happened without it. We'll be performing at festivals in Brittany and Wales in the summer and it's great to have my new music out there at last.

AmeriCymru: You are currently living between Wales and Brittany. How strong is the Breton influence on the album and upon your life and music generally at the moment?

Lleuwen: It's pretty nuts spending so much time on a boat or plane but, to be honest, I don't really like to be settled in one place so I suppose this life suits me well. I live far from the city here in Brittany and this is a huge influence on my work. I would say that this new disc has an anti-urban sound to it almost. The production is rough and gritty and it was important for me to have it that way. It sounds quite wild too - lots of made-up weird open guitar tunings which I have grown to adore. I also play drums and zither on it and various pots and pans from the kitchen. I wanted sounds that the listener doesn't recognise as "instruments" . . . that way nothing comes between the listener and the music itself. I wanted to get to the core of it.

AmeriCymru: I read somewhere that you were learning Breton. How is that going? How does it differ from Welsh?

Lleuwen: Breton is a delicious language, close to nature and so interestingly similar to my own mother tounge . It s been one of the greatest adventures of my life to explore and learn this language and I continue to do so. I began leaning the language in the pubs of course and just by generally hanging out. When I first go t here I spent some time camping out in the garden of "Tavern Ty Elise" in Plouie. This pub has since burned down but will be reopening shortly and I can't wait. I need it's inspiration. It s a legendary bar, run by Merthyr Tudfil boy, Byn Walters. Anyway, I learned a lot of Breton there, just by listening, just by being. I then decided to study more seriously by doing a six month course with an association called Roudour. It was here I began to write a few Breton songs too . . .as well as my Welsh ones. Please check out Roudour's site if you can : www.roudour.com . Their courses are the best. A real mind-opener.

AmeriCymru: Can you tell our members a bit about your career, how you developed as a vocalist?

Lleuwen: My father is singer/songwriter Steve Eaves and so I don't remember a time where music, musicians and instruments were not around me. I suppose it's fair to say that I had a blesssed childhood in that way. I never really gave much thought to singing or making music. . . it just happend. It's just something I do. One of the uncomplicated things in life! I went on to study music and theatre and, through my studies, I got to go to Central College Iowa for six months. I loved it and met so many interesting people who were crazy about jazz (like myself!) I returned to Wales inspired to do do Welsh language jazz . . .something new to the scene. I joined jazz trio Acoustique and we released "Cyfnos" (which, translated means "Dusk") on Sain Records. I have since released three solo albums, all being different but at the same time, I still have the same goal, and that is to make NEW music. That is what I have, what I am and what I will always search for in life.

AmeriCymru: Can you explain something of the background and inspiration for the 'Duw a Wyr' album for our readers?

Lleuwen: It was 2004, a century after Evan Roberts's Welsh religious revival and I became interested in the hymns that were sung at the time. I met pianist Huw Warren that same year and we realized that we shared the same interest in these revivalist hymns and began to dig deeper into the project. I spent months and months researching into the hymns that were sung in the Bethesda area and was amazed by some the jewels I found - long lost tunes and mind-blowing poetry! My mother passed away the previous year and, looking back, I see that, through my research, I was also searching for answers. My mother introduced me to the Welsh hymns and I heard them from her radio set as I fell asleep every sunday night throughout my childhood. I find it difficult to listen back to "Duw a Wyr" because I hear my grief in the music. And although I cant' isten to it, I am proud of the record because I still receive letters today, from people who have been touched by the music.

AmeriCymru: Your album, 'Penmon,' was inspired by your home on Ynys Mon/Anglesey. can you tell us a little about the album?

Lleuwen: "Penmon" was my first adventure with the acoustic guitar! My first record as a songwriter and guitarist as well as singing. There was a sense of freedom in this and I continue along that road.

AmeriCymru: Where can people hear/buy your music online? Any live appearances in the near future?

Lleuwen: to buy the music, put my name into the search on www.sainwales.com and for live appearances, check out www.myspace.com/lleuwen

AmeriCymru: Any plans to visit the States?

Lleuwen: I hope. I wish.

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the members and readers of Americymru?

Lleuwen: thanks for listening. spread the love.

Interview by Ceri Shaw Email

Advance Event Notice
Lleuwen Steffan - Folk Alliance International

Saturday February 20 2016, 7:45 PM
@ Pershing East/West Ballroom, Kansas City, MO

Lleuwen Steffan (photo by Steph Carioù)

AmeriCymru: Hi Lleuwen...please tell us about your upcoming visit to the States. How long will you be in the US?

Lleuwen: Pnawn da Americymru,  great to be in touch again. It’s been so long since I last crossed that pond !  The first trip will be short – I will perform with  brilliant double-bassist Vincent Guerin as a part of Folk Alliance International in Kansas City. The gig will be at 7.45pm on Saturday 20 February and the exact location will be posted on the festival website shortly. (www.folk.org). We will return to the States in the summer to play at Rochester Jazz Festival, NY. This time with the full band. What a treat ! We will play two concerts at the festival between June 24 and July 2. We will have a working VISA for this occasion and are searching for other concerts in the States either the month prior to or the month following Rochester Jazz Festival.

AmeriCymru: What can you tell us about the musicians who will be accompanying you?

Lleuwen: I  consider myself a very, very lucky lady to have a dream band accompanying me this summer : Vincent Guerin from Brittany with his double bass : http://www.vincecow.com/wordpress/ Jochen Eisentraut from the Ogwen Valley on piano and sax. My sister Manon Steffan Ros providing vocal harmonies. It’s going to be fun and we are all extremely excited for the American Adventure !

AmeriCymru: Are you looking for other gigs/engagements while you are here?

Lleuwen: Yes indeed! As I mentioned, our visas will allow us to work in the US and Canada for a month and I am on the look-out for concerts either the month prior or following the Rochester Jazz Festival. There are many ways in which my music can be performed . . . with the band, as a trio, duo, or even solo with just my voice and guitar. Chapels, house gigs, village halls, festivals, music halls. . .the variety is what keeps the music moving and inspiration flowing. Perhaps Americymru members would also be interested in my sister’s work. Manon (Steffan Ros) will sing back-up vocals on the American Adventure. She is also a professional writer. Her most critically acclaimed novel Blasu has recently been translated into English - The Seasoning.  Manon often gives talks and workshops about her writing and would be very happy to do so in America .You can read an interview with Manon here : 

http://www.judithbarrow.co.uk/wednesdays-interview-with-honno-authors-today-with-manon-steffan-ros/

We are open to all kinds of music making. I have recently had the pleasure of leading singing workshops specializing in folk songs and hymns. If you would like more info about any of this, please feel free to contact me directly through my website or through my management. (Details at the bottom of the page.)

AmeriCymru: How would you describe your repertoire? Will it include material from your three studio albums?

Lleuwen: I have been working on a set of original material combined with some Welsh hymns and a sprinkle of rather unlikely and unusual folk tunes. I can’t wait to share this music with American audiences ! It has been called jazzy folk, it has been called folky jazz. But to me they’re just songs.  The band is a « lobscows » (welsh stew) of  various tastes and textures. I’m having great fun making songs and sharing musical memories with friends. The enjoyment of the band is surely heard in the music. I have been working with two wonderful singer / songwriters this year – John Spillane form Ireland and Frank Yamma from the Australian desert. Both totally inspiring in very different ways. I will be performing songs from my past albums of course but will mostly focus on the new stuff. And you know, the new old stuff  . . .revamps of Welsh hymns and some folk songs.         

AmeriCymru:  What's next for Lleuwen Steffan. Any new recordings in the pipeline?

Lleuwen: There have been very many new songs in the past four months. Mostly about mountains vs cities - Eryri, Cardiff, Llanrug, motorways, seasickness. I am always hunting for songs, alway writing and recording songs. The new stuff is acoustically wild and less electric than the previous record, Tan. Not at all polished. I have been travelling  back and forth to Brittany so much during the past years and songs do tend to come out on the ferry.  Some I love and some I don’t.  It’s wonderful.  To find a song I am proud of gives me joy.  And I enjoy writing the crap ones too . . . to have a good old laugh at myself ! It’s soul food.  I consider myself very fortunate to be doing this. I am very happy with this direction. There might be a release date on the horizon . . . but I’m just going to keep quiet and surprise you with that one!

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?

Lleuwen:   Do keep an eye on my website for the latest info about our American Adventure ! All will be revealed. Also, please do not hesitate to contact us for more info. And last but not least, I wish you all a NADOLIG LLAWEN and a BLWYDDYN NEWYDD DDA ! Make it a good one, folks ! Cariad mawr x

Lleuwen’s website : http://www.lleuwen.com

Management & Bookings : Peter@peterconwaymanagement.com

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AmeriCymru:  Who were the Tunnelrunners? How was the band formed and What was your role in it?

Madoc: The Tunnelrunners were a punk band formed in Neath around 1977. We played around the Swansea area for a few years made a record and then split up when we went to college. What we didn’t know is that after splitting up we had a career which involved several bootlegs and our records selling for as much as $1,000.

Our gigs were very rare because there weren’t many places to play and our drummer Jeff Burton only had a small van. We used to have to pay him for petrol with our pocket money, that is how young we were. There were three of us in the band. Graham Jones who played guitar, Jeff Burton who played drums and myself, Madoc Roberts. I was the main singer and played guitar. Graham and I wrote the songs. It was a great laugh with lots of late night practicing and funny gigs.

The name came whilst we were watching Magpie a children’s television programme. The presenter forgot the name of a small mammal that was featured in an item and kept calling them tunnelrunners we thought this was hysterical and chose it for our name.

Our first gig was at Circles club in Swansea which was notorious for its sticky floor. Many famous bands played there and legend has it that the Sex Pistols played a gig there. On the night of our first gig our drummer pulled out and in true punk spirit someone else stepped in. However he didn’t know the songs and the sound hadn’t been set up properly. We were dreadful and an older man at the bar started booing. By the end of the set he had given up booing and was pleading with us to get off the stage as we were ruining his night.

After that the gigs improved and we built up a bit of a reputation. Then one night we were approached by Steve Mitchell who was a radio dj with Swansea Sound. He had started his own record label called Sonic International and asked us if we wanted to make a record.

We turned up at the studio to find an old sound engineer who wasn’t used to punk bands. He spent hours trying to make us sound like a “proper” band and then played it back. He made us sound clean and horrible so we told him just to mike up the amps and we would play the songs as live. We wizzed through our set in about twenty minutes (some of our songs lasted less than a minute!) We told him not to worry about the mistakes and left. From that session came our Plastic Land EP. There weren’t many copies made so it was quite rare and in recent years it has become very collectible. There were another five songs recorded at that session that were later released as the 100mph ep. We knew nothing about this as our manager has lost contact with us. We never even got a copy. Sonic International later developed into Fierce recordings which had bands like the Pooh Sticks. They also released stuff by Ian Brown, Patti Smith and even Charles Manson!

Without us knowing our record became quite sought after and appeared on several bootlegs. When I finally got the internet I was amazed to find all this interest in the Tunnelrunners had been going on without us knowing. One of our records was even sold in an ebay auction for $1,000. So in our absence we had done quite well!

Every now and then I am contacted by someone who wants to do an interview or re-release our music. A few years ago it was Sing Sing records from New York who re- released Plastic Land and this year I was approached by Stephen “Haggis” Harris of Punk House records. Stephen lives in New York but is originally from Swansea. As a youngster he sneaked into our gigs (he was only fourteen at the time). He later went on to have a glittering career as a musician, playing bass for Guns and Roses and forming Zodiac Mind Warp and the Love Reaction. He thinks that the Swansea Punk scene had something special and wants to make a record of the bands. His record label, Punk House are re-releasing stuff by Swansea bands from that era and it is good stuff. They have already released our 100mph ep which sold very quickly and they are going to a second pressing. They are re-issuing Plastic Land around June 10th. They make the records interesting by adding memorabilia from the time.

http://punkhouserecordshop.com/

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AmeriCymru:  How would you describe the early punk scene in Swansea and in the UK generally?

Madoc:   The Punk scene in Swansea was unique. We didn’t really know what was going on in London because punk wasn’t reported in the newspapers except in some shock horror story, but the main thing about punk was the do-it-yourself attitude. Music had become big business, the bands were massive and the music had become self -indulgent. We couldn’t play like Led Zeppelin. That amount of gear would never fit in Jeff’s van. So punk was a way of reclaiming music from big business. In the early days each band interpreted this in their own way and we were all different. The same thing happened with the fashion. There were no Sid Vicious clones in black leather, we wore colourful stuff that we got from jumble sales or charity shops. It was only later that the punk image and music became a stereotype. They were fun times although we did get some trouble from older rockers who were scared of anything new and different.

There were some great bands in Swansea at that time like the DC10s, The End, The Lost Boys, the Urge, The Dodos, Venom, The Autonomes etc We all played at the same venues and then would see each other at gigs. There is a Facebook page where we all meet up, share photos and chat about old times. I think it is a closed group but if you are interested let me know. Swansea - Punk Rock and New Wave .

AmeriCymru:   What were your favourite bands of that era? Which ones did you get to see live?

Madoc:   I went to see bands whenever I could including the Clash, The Damned, The Buzzcocks, The Lurkers etc. My favourite band was the Ramones. It could be quite dangerous going to see a punk band. On one occasion I was chased by some angry locals from Port Talbot and on another occasion I went to see the Damned in Cardiff. This was a big adventure for a boy from Neath. The venue was an old cinema called the Prince of Wales which showed “adult” films. We found the people selling the tickets and they looked like proper London punks. They giggled as we left but we didn’t know why. Then when the Damned came on stage we realised that these were the people we had brought the tickets from. We had heard their music but we had never seen pictures of them them. During the gig, which was on the first floor (second to you Americans) there was so much pogoing (bouncing up and down) that the floor started to shake. That was the last gig allowed at the venue.

The other thing that happened around that time was the Rock Against Racism gigs which were organised by the Anti Nazi League. This was in response to an unhealthy surge in right wing politics in the UK. Groups like the National Front and the British National Party were pretty nasty and seemed to hate everyone who wasn’t like them. Something had to be done about them and music became the rallying point. At these gigs reggae bands and punk bands would share the same stage. I saw lots of great acts like Elvis Costello, Matumbi, Burning Spear, Aswad, Richrad Hell and the Voidoids. It was fun but we were also politically aware and active.

AmeriCymru:   Where can readers go to hear the Tunnelrunners online?

Madoc:   If anyone is interested in hearing our music there is a myspace site https://myspace.com/tunnelrunners/music/songs

and there are several videos on youtube. Here is a link to Plastic Land

There is no footage of us live just photos and these are on our facebook site https://www.facebook.com/TheTunnelrunners?fref=ts

The music sounds best on vinyl so if you can get hold of it that way you should.

AmeriCymru:   Any final message for AmeriCymru members and readers?

Madoc:   The Tunnelrunners did reform in the eighties and made a film which still exists somewhere. We got some new band members. Neil Sinclair on Bass and Guy Lawrence on drums. The music became a bit less punky but we never smoothed off the rough edges. We played gigs in Cardiff and Newport for a few years. We even played at TJs where Kurt Cobain proposed to Courtney Love. Our last gig was in the late nineties by which time I was becoming too old and too fat so we had the good sense to stop.

There is a lot of nonsense written about punk and what happened in the late seventies but as far as I am concerned it gave the music industry the kick it needed. These days kids can make music in their bedrooms which sounds very punk but then they all seem to want a record deal from a big company. We did it for ourselves and there is something to be said for that. It teaches you valuable lessons for life about being self-reliant and builds up a healthy distrust of authority which has stood me in good stead through my career.  I now work in television and have worked on many pop videos and music shows with lots of Welsh bands like Cataonia, The Stereophonics, The Manic Street Preachers and the Super Furry Animals. All these bands owe something to the punk revolution of the late seventies and it was great fun being young and in a band at that time.

‘ The death of John Mouse’ is John MOuse ’s fourth album and first long player since 2010’s acclaimed ‘Humber Dogger Forties ,’ and it   finally sees the light of day this summer, a remarkable feat of endurance and persistence: four years in the making and funded by an ingenious Kickstarter campaign. ‘ The death of John Mouse’ is John MOuse’s finest work to date, crafting his unique quirk-pop songs into a grander whole, thus the instrumentals are more muscular, the hooks catchier, the vocals more emphatically delivered. While each song is rooted in John’s brutally personal lyrics that are laced with his witty South Walian slant on life.

The album is preceded by the excellent single  “I Was A Goalkeeper” #IWAGK available to  download July 7th  via itunes is a s parky indie-pop duet between John and Gareth David, lead singer from LOS CAMPESINOS. It’s an anthem to child-parents and childhoods past, urging Steve Lamacq to recently admit ‘Possibly our favourite new football reco rd’. It also features previous single Robbie Savage, a song that Mary Anne Hobbs recently described as ‘an extraordinary piece of poetry’ on BBC 6 Music. J ohn MOuse will perform at GreenMan 2014 Festival alongside BEIRUT , Neutral Milk Hotel and First Aid Kit .

John MOuse, real name John Davies has been described as ‘A Welsh Beck,’ and ‘A Less Funny Half Man Half Biscuit’. Under his previous incarnation JT Mouse he worked with Sweet Baboo (aka Steven Black) while in 2010 he scored as cult hit with a song about a gay romance with another duet, this time with TV presenter Steve Jones . Airplay support for John MOuse includes Frank Skinner on Absolute Radio, Huw Stephens on BBC Radio 1, Steve Lamacq on BBC 6 Music and Adam Walton & Bethan Elfyn on BBC Radio Wales.

facebook.com/johnmousemusic twitter.com/johnmousemusic bandcamp.com/johnmousemusic

Welsh tunes and songs, old and new. Wistful and intricate to gritty and driving acoustic folk/baroque by two of Wales’s foremost traditional musicians / Alawon a chaneuon Cymraeg, hen a newydd. Hiraethus a chymhleth i bras a gyrru - gwerin acwstig / baróc gan ddau o brif gerddorion traddodiadol.

AmeriCymru interviewed Nial and Cass about the album and their past and future musical projects. Please read on below.

Buy Oes i Oes here

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AmeriCymru:  Can you describe the instrument for us?

Gafin: The pibgorn is a simple chanter with a cylindrical bore with a horn each end, one to blow into and one as an amplifier. It has a single beating reed i.e. one tongue rather than two as in a bagpipe. It can be blown with or without circular breath. Its a fun instrument and great for building up woodwind skills. It always turns a head wherever you go!

AmeriCymru: Can you tell us a little about the history of the instrument?

Gafin: It was first mentioned in Wales in the laws of Hywel Dda as one of the instruments played at the Royal Courts. This dates back to around 900 AD. The instrument is generally thought to have been played by shepherds and there are local accounts in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales of one being played by a shepherd in the last century. There were large pibgorn gatherings on Ynys Mon  but I cant imagine they played in unison in those times!

AmeriCymru: How easy/difficult/impossible is it to learn to play the pibgorn?

Gafin: Like any instrument it takes time and patience to learn. Many are deceived by its simplicity but it is a woodwind and you need to blow into it correctly. I have heard some people speak of a woodwind embouchure starting with your diaphragm and ending at the lips. There are a lot of factors between these points before considering the reed.

The pibgorn plays open fingering lime a whistle, you can cover half notes or cross finger some.

AmeriCymru: Are there any online learning resources or demonstration videos that you would recommend?

Gafin: There is a growing youtube collection of pibgorn videos available. Its nice to see the fingering styles and sound of the instrument. There is a definite need for a good 'how to' manual. All my pibgyrn come with a brief 'how to' guide and there is a fingering chart available on my website.

AmeriCymru: Your pibgyrn are made of plastic. Care to tell us a little about the design and manufacturing process?

Gafin: The design process was very complicated and really makes you appreciate how every little plastic gadget or part takes a huge amount of human effort to produce.

I converted working wood pibgorn dimensions into 3D CAD drawings and after various prototypes went for injection moulding. I still hand assemble and tune every reed. The reed body is printed in 3D. I am also able to 3D print bespoke horn colours. So you can have a brown chanter with green horns for example. I have made a pibgorn in the colours of the Welsh flag. I would like to auction this for funds for the Welsh youth movement the Urdd.

AmeriCymru: Where can readers go online to purchase one of your pibgyrn?

Gafin:   My website  www.pibgorn.co.uk has an online shop.

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the members and readers of AmeriCymru?

Gafin: I am really happy that there has been a great interest in this instrument in the US. I hope people start posting youtube videos of themselves playing it and also in writing new tunes. It would be great for pibgorn players in the US to write new music for the instrument.

We are very pleased to be able to present a second interview with Digon o Grwth/Master of the Crwth, Jack Bevil to coincide with this year's St David's Day celebrations. If you missed our earlier three part interview with Jack please go here .  Jack Bevil will be lecturing and performing at this year's West Coast Eisteddfod on Saturday September 24th. Further details will be announced shortly. Hear Jack play a selection of traditional Welsh melodies on the crwth at the bottom of this page .

AmeriCymru: Hi, Jack, and many thanks for agreeing to this second interview with AmeriCymru. Can you give us a sneak preview of your presentation/performance at the event?

Jack: Thank you so much for your continued interest and for giving me the opportunity to perform and inform at the upcoming West Coast Eisteddfod. My last Eisteddfod was the 1972 Royal National at Haverfordwest, where I did my first ethnomusicological field research. It was also there that I got my first real, live experience with spoken Welsh, which was quite different from what Id gotten from books. During some of the time in September, Ill be moving around and giving impromptu performances as an itinerant crythor , or crwth-player. In addition, Im preparing a lecture-recital in which Ill lecture on the issues of the instrument itself, the origin and various meanings of the word crwth , reconstructed performance techniques (especially holding, tuning, bowing, and bridge placement), the crwths origins, and its place in early sixteenth- through middle nineteenth-century Welsh folk culture. The recital will consist of performances of pieces to illustrate some of the points made in the lecture as those points are made. The presentation is only in its early preparatory stages now. Ill send more detail, including a short video, later.

AmeriCymru: Care to tell us a little about the crwth for the benefit of any of our readers who may not be acquainted with the instrument?

Jack: The modern, or most recent, crwth was a small lyre -technically a bowed and plucked fingerboard yoke lyre, as shown in the picture below - that appears to have flourished in Wales from between ca. 1490-1510 until about 1740-50. It barely survived in practice, in rapidly decreasing numbers, from the mid-eighteenth century until shortly after the mid-nineteenth century.

The four main strings were drawn over a nearly flat bridge and a flat, fretless fingerboard. Those four strings were played with a bow held in the right hand, and they were stopped by the tips of the players left fingers. Two open, or unstopped, drone strings, also passed over the bridge, ran along the observers-left side of the fingerboard, and were plucked by the left thumb.

Crwth with bow ( 1970 reconstruction )

Unlike the violin and the other academic orchestral strings, and like some of its predecessors, the modern crwth was a folk instrument, and it was one of the last of a long line of chordophones that underwent many changes over the centuries. Therefore, it never achieved the violins strict standardization of either design or performance practice. Crwth performance practice, in fact, appears to have varied greatly from shortly before the modern crwths emergence from prototypes until its extinction in practice by ca. 1860.

Crwth itself, which means a swelling out , appears to have been applied to a number of different yoke lyres from at least as far back as the eleventh century. Given the literal meaning of the word, it is likely that not only the modern crwth but also its predecessors shared a hunchbacked appearance. Crwth and its English equivalent crowd also were occasionally applied to modern orchestral string instruments such as the violin after the modern crwth became extinct in practice.

The prototypes of the modern crwth seem to have emerged in Continental Europe, where they were called c hrotta, rotta, rota, rotte, and rote throughout much of the Middle Ages. The Anglo-Saxons and later the Normans brought various prototypes of the modern crwth with them across the North Sea and the English Channel. During their first several centuries in the British Isles, those instruments and the modified forms of them that almost continuously evolved were usually known by their Continental names, and that practice evidently continued until some point late in the high Middle Ages (twelfth through fourteenth centuries), well after the emergence of the English term crowd , the surname Crowder (lyre-player, or fiddler) , and the Welsh term crwth . Chaucer (ca. 1340-1400), for example, mentions the rote in the general prologue to The Canterbury Tales (And certainly he hadde a murye note: / Wel koude he synge, and pleyen on a rote.).

Cruit was the Irish term for one or more of the early lyres, and it also seems to have denoted small harps in some cases. Other Irish designations of lyres were timpan and tiompan .

The lyres (as well as Medieval bagpipes) were also sometimes given the Latin designations choro and chorus , probably a reference to their abilities to play multiple notes simultaneously. Much later, the line Strike the harp, and join the chorus in the familiar New Year carol Deck the Hall, whose music was a dance tune known in Welsh as Nos Galan, or New Years Eve, may well have been a reference to the crwth, not a vocal ensemble. This looseness and complexity of nomenclature across several centuries is one of a number of issues that make inquiries and conclusions about the crwth and its forebears potentially very tricky.

The various small lyres were most often associated with the itinerant, lower-class minstrels until around or shortly after the close of the Middle Ages. That somewhat dubious distinction actually worked to those instruments advantage, because it helped them be readily absorbed into the folk culture, where they survived the demise of minstrelsy. By the fourteenth century, they had passed their heyday on the Continent. It seems that, over the next hundred to hundred fifty years, the last of the modern crwths forebears were confined to the English West Country and Wales, and that the final structural changes that distinguish the modern crwth - especially the anterior rather than posterior tuning pegs, the squared-off rather than rounded lower end, and the distinctive sloping or obliquely-positioned bridge took place in Wales, where the crwth was used at country dances and on occasion in the hands of ballad singers. It was sometimes played at the dances along with the pibgorn, or hornpipe, a capped-reed woodwind with a barrel made from the shinbone of a ram and a bell made from a cow horn. The telyn, or harp, also joined the crwth in performance on some occasions.

It is important to remember that while some of the modern crwths general lyre-like features give it a broad visual resemblance to some very ancient instruments such as the Hebraic kinnor of Old Testament times, the modern crwth, although old, is not a truly ancient instrument and therefore was not played by the Druids or other early inhabitants of Celtic Britain.

It is also important to note that the crwth was not an ancestor of the violin. Surviving iconographic evidence makes it clear that the huge split in the string family that resulted in the emergence of the independent fingerboard lyre - that is, the lyre with a fingerboard but no yoke - and in some cases the incurved sides also, took place not in Medieval Europe but in the ancient Middle East - hence al ud , from which came lute - perhaps as early as ca. 3000 B.C. That pre-dated by over three millennia the development of the chordophone bow, also in the Middle East. Therefore the incurving of the sides of the resonator, or sound-box, took place far from Europe, initially to facilitate plucking, for acoustical reasons, or both, not to aid bowing. The late nineteenth-century view that the violin emerged when the yoke was removed from the crwth and the sides were incurved to help with bowing was a misapplication of superficially understood Darwinian evolutionary theory and in most cases no knowledge of ancient Middle Eastern developments.

AmeriCymru: Why did the crwth disappear?

Jack: Ill preface my answer to that by stating that I, with regret, must face the fact that theres not a religion known to mankind that does not have at least one or two skeletons in its closet.

Evangelical Protestantism of the kind that was found in Wales, beginning ca. 1690 and gaining a solid toe-hold in the early to middle eighteenth century, in my estimation has to have been one of the most odious offenders in the history of Christendom, because it almost totally destroyed an indigenous culture within a very short time. In their works The Psychology of the Methodist Revival, Madness in Society , and The Treveca Letters, Sydney Dimond, George Rosen, and J. Morgan Jones, respectively, paint a shocking picture of the ways in which Howell Harris, Daniel Rowland, and other leaders of the religious movement in Wales ca. 1735-40, whipped people up into emotional frenzies to the point of being capable of doing almost anything they were told to do. Recorded cases of markedly abnormal group and individual behavior abound, and lets keep in mind that those are only the documented reports that have survived over more than two hundred fifty years. Those reports become especially believable and troubling after one reads a passage in Ellis Wynnes earlier Gweledigaetheu y Bardd Cwsc (1703; translated by Robert Davies as Visions of the Sleeping Bard , 1897), in which the author speaks of visions of people dancing on the hot pavement of Hell to the music of the crwth. Both the crwth and the pibgorn, due their associations with country dancing, often were brought to outdoor religious gatherings, broken or chopped to pieces, and burned after being declared implements of Satan. By ca. 1750-60, only a relatively small number of crythau (crwths) were left in scattered, remote locations. In the larger cities and towns, the violin eventually filled the void left by the crwth after having often escaped destruction due to its less rural, more academic associations. The telyn (harp), for the same reason, also fared reasonably well. By ca. 1850, after recurring waves of religious fervor, the crwth was all but extinct in practice, nearly wiped out in only a little over a century, along with the traditional dancing that it supported. According to a preserved oral account, the last of the old crythorion died in 1855.

AmeriCymru: You have mentioned what you call extinction in practice. What does that mean?

Jack: It simply means that the crwth stopped being played by anyone anywhere as far as can be determined. It does not mean that no specimens of the instrument survived, as simply extinct would. A small handful of instruments still survive, in most if not all cases without their more fragile original bows. Beginning in the early twentieth century, there was a revival of interest in playing the crwth, and a number of reconstructions and copies were made of instruments, as well as a few made from existing drawings. However, it wasnt until the late twentieth century that the revivalist players, drawing in many cases on musicological investigations, began changing from attempting to play the crwth like a viol or other salon instrument to playing it like the folk instrument it appears to have been. One could argue that the crwth now exists in practice for a second time, but the number of practitioners is tiny in comparison to what it once was, when there was at least one crwth in almost every village and when there were many adages in colloquial speech such as We are playing the crwth in its bag, meaning We are not giving her a fair chance, and An old crwth has a sweet voice, meaning He gets his way through flattery or Stop trying to flatter me! and My bows across the strings, meaning Im ready, and A crwth plays well on an empty stomach, but its player does not, a saying whose meaning is self-explanatory.

AmeriCymru: What happened to Celtic music in Wales?

Jack: You are correct in placing Celtic in quotation marks. As far as Celtic music in general is concerned, there is no universally accepted definition of Celtic music , so your question is somewhat difficult to answer. Also, the fact of there having been little if any ethnic purity anywhere on earth for many millennia, makes Celtic music arguably something of a specious term. Assuming the existence of music closely associated idiomatically with what are usually considered to be the Celtic regions, I would define Celtic music , in a way that is fairly broad yet not all-inclusive, as the stylistically distinctive music of the predominately Goidelic and Brythonic peoples of the European mainland, the British Isles, and the parts of the world to which large numbers of those peoples migrated, including but not limited to the American Southern Uplands, or Lower Appalachia. I make a point of excluding much of the modern popular music that is meant to sound Celtic, first because it has rarely if ever emerged within any of the cultures that I just cited, and also because it often consists of little more than stock motifs using anhemitonic pentatonic gamut segments - that is, scales containing five different letter-designated pitch classes and no half-steps, such as C-D-E-G-A-c. For the same reasons, I usually exclude most academic music that has Celtic allusions. I have heard some pieces that are very idiomatically Celtic, but I cannot call them truly Celtic music because they did not originate within a predominately Celtic culture. In other words, I draw a distinction between Celtic and idiomatically Celtic . Finally, I generally exclude much of what has been created in parts of the modern world by persons of Celtic ancestry. In some of those cases, that music may have a Celtic overlay (again, stock motifs and sometimes pentatonic underpinnings), but it usually lacks a full complement of distinctively Celtic traits, especially its melodic traits namely, tunes resulting from the interaction of the indigenous pentatonic scalar system and one of the structural norms (ballad tune, fiddle tune, lament, etc.) that produced melodies in their entireties. A ballad, for example, had its characteristic combination of scalar and morphological norms, as did other species. To make a long story short, the Scottish Lament for William Chisholm is representative of what could be called Celtic music, but Malcolm Arnolds S cottish Dances are not, except in the idiomatic sense. Likewise, Danny Boy, at least in its original form as played by the blind fiddler, could be called Celtic music, my Celtic Dreams, now in preparation, will be only idiomatically Celtic and Celtic by allusion, and a piece consisting of scarcely anything more than a ramble through one or more of the pentatonic gamut segments and perhaps a familiar stock motif or two is pseudo-Celtic and perhaps could even pass for Native American, Asian, sub-Saharan African, or African-American.

In comparison to much traditional Irish and Scottish music, as well as the transplanted Irish, Scottish, and Scots-Irish music of Lower Appalachia, the American Southern Piedmont (the lowlands between the Southern Uplands and the Atlantic coast), and other areas in the eastern part of North America, distinctively Celtic properties have been, with an occasional exception, generally in short supply in Welsh music for a long time. While the terribly destructive incursions of Evangelical Protestantism into Wales certainly did not help that situation, it would be unfair to lay all, most, or even very much of the blame at that doorstep. It seems that most of the distinctively Celtic properties had been missing from Welsh music for some time before the early to middle eighteenth century. Perhaps most strikingly, Welsh melodies found in early collections such as those of Playford have few pentatonic, or even incipiently pentatonic, properties. From more recent times, the great Welsh hymn tunes such as Hyfrydol, Cwm Rhondda, Bryn Calfaria, and Ebeneezer are heptatonic (seven-toned, major and minor scales such as C-D-E-F-G-A-B-c or A-B-C-D-E-F-G-a), not pentatonic, although the Irish hymn tune Slane, (Be Thou My Vision), from roughly the same period, is markedly pentatonic. Also, few Welsh melodies from the seventeenth century or later follow any of the established Celtic ballad-tune, dance-tune, or other morphological (melodic-contour) norms as closely as so many Scottish and Irish tunes do. As unpleasant as the likelihood, if not the probability, may be to some, most surviving Welsh music from prior to the eighteenth century is significantly less idiomatically Celtic than much Scottish and Irish music, and in many ways is closer to much English music from outside the West Country where, curiously, Celtic properties seem to have thrived until fairly recent times, at least if whats in the collections of Vaughan Williams, Sharp, and others is taken as indicative. Some of this disparity could have to do with the limited number of examples recorded in Wales by Welshmen in pre-twentieth-century times and most of the collections being the work of English auditors who may have corrected what they regarded as errors of scale and melody. However, I do not believe that all the difference can be thus explained away.

There also is evidence that there could have been incursions of non-Celtic idioms into the Welsh musical world perhaps as far back as the late Middle Ages. One document is particularly interesting. It consists of glosses, or inserted non-original material, in the Robert ap Huw manuscript, also known as British Museum Manuscript A dditional 14905 . The main body of the manuscript was a collection of etudes. The manuscript was later owned by Lewis Morris. He added some glosses that purportedly were copied from an older manuscript of un-cited date and origin.

Those glosses speak in very esoteric terms about what could have been a complex pentatonic scalar system, referring to the scales as keys and to notes that can be inserted into the characteristic minor thirds of the pentatonic gamut segments as recess notes. That discussion of keys seems to point toward what was, in the eighteenth century and probably even in the late sixteenth century, an old and established body of Celtic music theory and performance practice. The purported age of the information may be an exaggeration. Rather than belonging to the eleventh or twelfth century, it more likely belongs to the fourteenth century, when contact between Wales and Ireland, the likely source of the material, was more frequent. However, that also was the time when English and Continental incursions from the east and south would have been posing a threat to Celtic traditions, especially in Wales.

Prior to that time, musical knowledge was largely restricted to trained musicians and those in training, and it customarily was learned by memory, not written down. Threats from the east and south could have proven sufficient motivation for the limited written preservation of musical knowledge, although not enough to remove all esoteric terminology. The mention of recess notes could represent an awareness of how the seven-tone modes and scales of the Continent and England were making inroads into the formerly five-tone octave divisions of the Celtic world through the occurrences of additional tones within the characteristic minor-third intervals of the pentatonic system. Therefore the beginning of the end of distinctively Celtic music in Wales could date from near the end of the Middle Ages. Whether or not it did, idiomatically Celtic traits of scale and species-related contours clearly were far less common by the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Welsh music than they were in the music of Scotland and Ireland, both of which were more remote from southern England, where the centers of both culture and power were. If the rise of Evangelical Protestantism had anything to do with the disappearance of distinctively Celtic traits from traditional Welsh music, the effect probably was limited.

Concerning the matter of the pentatonic system, see my article titled Scale in Southern Appalachian Folksong: a Reexamination, College Music Symposium (1986), 77-92. An online abstract is available at http://home.earthlink.net/~llywarch/scl01.html.htm.

AmeriCymru: Two years ago we asked you if the Crwth could make a comeback and you replied that "I think it already has made a comeback.....". Have there been further signs of this over the last two years? Any further encouraging developments?

Jack: Although two years is not long enough to justify a firm declaration of significantly increased activity, there seems to be an increase in website discussions and articles that at least touch on the crwth. Due to health issues, Ive not been able to keep abreast of that as much as Id have liked to, but googling crwth brings up more results than it did two years ago. I cant really quantify an increase in interest, but I can conclude that there has been at least some. With the growth of the Internet, knowledge undoubtedly is spreading, and in some cases thats almost certain to yield an interest in learning to play the crwth, as well as becoming informed about its origins and history, not only via the Internet but also through printed studies, both early and more recent.

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?

Jack: Once again, I thank everyone for their interest in my work, and I look forward to seeing and meeting as many of you as possible at the West Coast Eisteddfod.

Those who want to look at some of the sources I have used might be interested in my online bibliography of documents dealing in whole or in part with the crwth. Ive listed my own works first, but they are greatly outnumbered by the studies of others on whose shoulders I have stood in many instances. The URL of that web page is http://home.earthlink.net/~llywarch/cth04.html . Also, the abstract of my Masters thesis of 1973 is online at http://home.earthlink.net/~llywarch/cth01.html.htm

Interview by Ceri Shaw Email

9. Were you able to find compositions or music for this instrument? What kind of music was used for?

"The crwth was a folk instrument, and as such was not supported by a written musical tradition. Both the method of playing it and the music for it were traditionally passed down from father to son, and I gather that there was more than a modicum of guarded secrecy. Sorry, ladies, but the traditional belief was that it was such bad luck for a girl or woman to play the crwth that her so doing would literally wake the dead and send bodies from the churchyard wandering around the town. Morris relates an account of that view in his monograph. I personally do not share that view, by the way!

10. You've composed music for the crwth - is there a particular type or style of composition you think it best suited to?

"I prefer either re-created or adapted to composed in most cases. Everything at this site, for example, is music that was initially fashioned by some talented but anonymous folk artist who probably did not read or write a note of music. There is musicality in each of us, just as surely as there is a penchant for verbalizing. As far as actual composition is concerned, I’ve had in my head for years – decades, in fact - a multi-movement piece called “Twmpath Dawns” (“Dance on the Village Green”) for crwth and orchestra, but I’ve only committed a tiny portion of it to writing. That’s one of so many things on my to-do list for post-retirement. Its style is not at all original, but rather based on that of the dance and ballad tunes that I located in my research, although I’ve not actually copied any of the melodies."

11. How important is the crwth in the Celtic musical tradition?

"I would regard the crwth as very important, although I have come to consider the oral-aural tradition supporting both the playing of it and the music for it, along with music for other folk instruments and vocal music, as even more important, not only because oral-aural tradition is the foundation on which so much else in folk culture is built, but also because what exists only in memories is so volatile and easily lost. Instruments are concrete phenomena and hence more durable entities. That is part of why my doctoral dissertation was on the oral-aural processes in melodic transmission, preservation, and change rather than on an instrument."

12. Do you believe that the crwth can make a comeback? Does it have a place in the mainstream musical tradition?

"I think it already has made a comeback as part of the larger emergence of both popular interest and scholarly inquiry in Celtic music. As to whether or not it will attract a huge following, I suspect not. We must remember that, of all the music education programs in our schools, strings in general tend to be the smallest group in terms of participants. For example, in American public schools, band members outnumber orchestra members ten-to-one, although, interestingly, studies have shown that string players are more likely than wind or percussion players to keep playing their instruments after finishing their formal educations. In my son’s high school, there were four huge bands and one orchestra of modest size. Given the limited number, although usually the deep dedication, of string players, I suspect that the crwth attracts and will continue to attract a relatively small but intensely devoted group of adherents.

Technically the crwth is in general far less facile then modern orchestral string instruments, and it’s not supported by either the huge written musical tradition or anything even remotely approaching the instructional regimen that exists for them. It is best suited to the music for which it was created, which is but one enjoyable but narrowly circumscribed segment of the entire Western instrumental music repertory. Hence I suspect that, while someday the crwth may enjoy an even greater status than it now occupies as an historical instrument useful in, for example, certain movie soundtracks or period and/or regional compositions, it will never stand as an equal partner with the violin. This is certainly not to speak disparagingly of the crwth in any way. After all, within the continuum of its particular repertory it can provide its own accompaniment and in so doing perform a feat at which the violin is far more limited except in the hands of a few of the greatest virtuosi.

There always is the possibility, of course, that a composer will come along who specializes in writing for instruments outside the usual academic milieu. There, in fact, was such a composer in the last century. His name was Harry Partch. He even invented some special instruments, in some cases by adapting earlier designs, and I seem to recall that he wrote for some antique instruments such as the panpipes. To the best of my knowledge, he wrote nothing for the crwth."

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13. Other than on this site where can people obtain samples of your work?

"There is my personal website, which includes the main crwth page that’s linked on my Americymru page. For direct access to my online bibliography of publications and presentations, go to http://home.earthlink.net/~llywarch/pubpr.html.htm It includes listings for my studies in other areas as well as those on the crwth.

My other “crwth pages” are as follows:

http://home.earthlink.net/~llywarch/cth02.html (performance advertisement)

http://home.earthlink.net/~llywarch/cth04.html (thesis bibliography with additional references)

A copy of my thesis is available via university interlibrary loan from the Music Library of the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, 76203. Also, as I’ve previously stated, I make and mail copies for the cost of production and mailing. I plan to put the whole thing, with revisions reflecting what appeared in my running supplement of addenda, online eventually."

14. Do you give live performances or demonstrations with the instrument?

"Yes, I do, although not all that often. I’ve performed with a harpist at the Mucky Duck Pub in Houston, a location where entertainment often includes live Celtic music, and I’ve performed at wedding receptions and various fundraisers for the arts in the Houston area since the late 1970s. At one point I was with Young Audiences of Houston. Also, I was once on “Inside Area-5,” a feature news program in the Dallas area, not too long after completing my thesis. For more detail, see my performance advertisement listed above."

3. Can you tell us a little about the history of the instrument?

We should remember, first of all, that crwth, which literally means protuberance or a swelling out , and probably refers to the rather hunch-backed appearance of both the most recent instrument and most of its forebears, denoted several different small, hand-held lyres that were used in western Britain at least as far back as the early eleventh century. The modern crwth, meaning the most recent instrument so designated, was one of the last of the bowed yoke lyres. That large and diverse species seems to have emerged around A.D. 900, when the bow crossed over both the Bosporus and the Straits of Gibraltar, entered Europe in a sort of pincers movement, and was applied to pre-existing European lyres that previously were plucked. It’s important to keep in mind that bowed instruments did not emerge along a single line, and that, in particular, the viol and violin did NOT emerge from the crwth and similar lyres when the yoke of the lyre was removed and the sides were incurved to facilitate bowing. Independent fingerboard lyres (that is, those with fingerboards but no yokes), including those with sides incurved for acoustic reasons, were developed as plucked instruments in the Middle East, perhaps as far back as around 3000 BC. One school of thought treats them as an entirely separate family from the lyres, calling them collectively the lute family. They, too, crossed over into Europe during the first millennium of the Common Era and later had the bow applied to them. It is from those that the viol and violin emerged. Unlike the viol and violin and their larger relatives such as the viol da gamba, violoncello, lyra da braccio, and double-bass viol, whose designs became standardized, the bowed lyres existed in many different forms in various regions of Europe and were used as instruments of the minstrels until the end of minstrelsy shortly after the close of the Middle Ages. After that, they were absorbed into the various local folk cultures, where a few of them survived in practice until fairly recent times. The Scandinavian talharpa , for example, could still be found in use as late as the early twentieth century, although it appears to have emerged prior to the advent of the modern crwth.

The modern crwth seems to have sprung from at least one and perhaps multiple closely related immediate prototypes within the Welsh folk culture, probably around 1500. It thrived there as a fiddle used at country dances and in some cases by ballad singers (the “newspapers” of the time and place) until around 1730. It seems to have been played most often as a solo instrument but on occasion in ensemble with the harp ( telyn ) and hornpipe ( pibgorn ). The crwth and pibgorn, along with dancing, were victims of the rise of the evangelical Protestantism, specifically Calvinistic Methodism, that swept Wales, much like the Great Awakening in America, in the 1730s and ‘40s. Large numbers of those instruments, along with decks of playing cards and other so-called implements of the Devil, were destroyed in what can be described most accurately as a mad orgy of religious fervor. The harp, due to its academic associations, suffered much less. The crwth and pibgorn survived, albeit in much smaller and diminishing numbers, in some remote locations for about a century beyond that time. According to oral tradition, the last of the old crythorion , one James Green of Bron y Garth, died in 1855.

With the establishment of musicology as a recognized discipline, initially under the leadership of German scholars, in the early twentieth century, came an interest beyond the dilettante level in old music and old instruments, including the crwth. Unfortunately, many of the early investigators were less than careful in their treatment of instruments outside the academic mainstream, and it was at that time that many erroneous notions regarding the crwth arose, including the view, representing misapplication of Darwinian biological theory, that the violin emerged when the yoke arms were removed from the crwth and the sides were incurved. Also prominent were romanticized, utterly unsupportable notions such as that of the crwth’s having been played at Stonehenge and elsewhere by the Druids. Still another error was that of superimposing academic performance technique, primarily that of the viol, onto the playing of the crwth. Much of the research since then, including mine, has been devoted to debunking earlier views and approaching the crwth and other folk music phenomena from within the native cultures as much as possible, not from some far-removed point in the academic mainstream.

4. How would you describe its sound?

"In brief, the sound is something of a cross between a fiddle and a bagpipe, especially when the tuning in paired fifths is employed. A tuning in paired seconds is still mistakenly regarded as standard. Initially it was reported by only one writer, Edward Jones, in his Musical and Poetical Relicks [sic] of the Welsh Bards , and then subsequent writers picked up on that and passed it along unquestioningly. The tuning in paired seconds is practical for playing chords, but very impractical for the playing of melodies. The tuning in fifths, with a dominant between the two roots or keynotes, has numerous precedents and parallels in the history of European string instruments, and turns the crwth from a dull, droning instrument into a reasonably nimble melodic executant with the ability to support its own melodies harmonically – in essence, a self-contained string ensemble. The tuning that I use is based on William Bingley’s report in A Tour Round North Wales . While Bingley almost certainly was in error in reporting the height to which the highest string was tuned, I suspect that he was more generally correct in reporting a tuning in paired fifths (for example G-g-D-d for the strings over the fingerboard). That is very similar to George Emerson’s report of the Scottish fiddle tuning G-D-g-d ( Rantin’ Pipe and Tremblin’ String ), a tuning that also used to be common among the old-time fiddlers here in America, especially in Appalachia, where chordal playing made possible by nearly flat bridges was once very common. Tuning in paired fifths, incidentally, differs from standard violin tuning in that the latter is in consecutive fifths (G-D-a-e) to facilitate mainly melodic playing.

5. Were you a violin or other stringed instrument player prior to discovering the crwth?

"Yes, I was a violinist. I still am, and one of my favorite activities is directing a group of youngsters in a string orchestra program. I’ve played my crwth with their chamber ensemble, or top group, on occasion, using my arrangements of traditional dance tunes, and we’ve all had a great time with that."

6. Was it difficult to move from the violin to the crwth? How different is playing the crwth, and how is it different?

"Yes and no, with regard to difficulty. At the time I was reconstructing crwth performance methodology, I had been away from the violin for over a year, so the shock was minimal. The biggest adjustment was learning to apply a lot more pressure to the crwth bow. A bow drawn across the strings at an oblique angle, rather than at a right angle as on the violin, will “ice skate” out of control, and also produce a thin sound, if it’s not pressed firmly. Pressing it firmly, of course, produces a tone that’s totally taboo on the violin – namely, a lot of upper partials and plain, old squeaks. That sound, however, was prized among crythorion . There’s an old Welsh adage that states in translation, “Let him who plays his crwth sweetly be hanged!” I have found going from crwth back to violin more of a challenge than going from violin to crwth. It’s easier to go after an instrument somewhat aggressively, as one must do with the crwth, than to approach it with the care, restraint, and meticulous finesse that one must use in playing the violin. I suspect the adjustment would be not quite so marked, at least in terms of right-hand technique, if I were a double-bass player."

7. How widespread is the crwth today? Are you aware of other crwth players, groups or crwth makers?

"I would say that it is more widespread now than it was when I began my research. More importantly, it is now more often viewed and played as the non-academic, folk instrument than it was, as opposed to the prevailing pre-1970s methods that were based on academic technique. Certainly the crwth, along with the bagpipe, penny whistle, and other traditional Celtic instruments, has benefitted from the enormous, almost exponential, explosion of serious, disciplined scholarly interest in, as well as the increased general popularity of, traditional Celtic music over the last thirty years or so. I have seen crwths advertised in a number of catalogs, including that of Lark in the Morning. I know that there are a number of makers both in the U.S. and the U.K. Anyone interested in obtaining one should have no trouble locating a maker on the Internet. Since I have my own, I have made no inquiries myself. Anybody interested in making an historically correct crwth of his or her own might find handy the appendix of my thesis, which includes detailed descriptions and diagrams of known originals and copies."

"That question makes me think that I need to write a tutorial on the subject. At the risk of sounding dreadfully conceited, which I’m really not, I’d suggest my thesis. I can provide copies, at production and mailing cost, to those who are interested. It does not include a tutorial on playing the crwth, but it goes into more detail than any earlier document that I know of in describing what appears to have been playing methodology. A summary of that can be found in my online abstract of “Some Observations Regarding Crwth Performance,” the URL of which is:-

http://home.earthlink.net/~llywarch/cth03.html

I also would be happy to answer questions in e-mail, as in fact I’ve done on occasion over the years ( llywarch@earthlink.net saves the trouble of writing via Americymru). If there appears to be enough interest, I can eventually post some information online, but of course that cannot be done overnight. Having said all that, I should stress that the crwth has not been the focus of my musicological activity for over twenty years. During that time there may have been written one or more tutorials that are based on reliable investigations and that avoid advocating academic technique such as one would use with the viol or violin.As far as previous knowledge and skills are concerned, a background in playing strings is helpful, especially an understanding of how whole steps involve spaces between the fingers while half-steps do not, if one is a violinist or violist. If one is using the diagonal cross-torso hold that I prefer (holding it up like a violin makes working the drones very difficult), a background as a cellist could be useful, except that the distances between the points of contact on the strings are smaller. Probably the biggest problem regarding left-hand technique is that of extending the thumb sideways and plucking the drones. That gives the entire hand sort of a claw-like character that is totally alien to orchestral string playing. The thumb rests against the side of the instrument’s neck on the violin and viola, and it rests on the back of the neck of the cello or double-bass.Anyone seeking tutelage from any crwth player needs to find someone who is knowledgeable of the crwth’s history in performance, and particularly someone who does not treat it like an academic instrument. In other words, run for your life from anyone who teaches the crwth as merely the less agile cousin of the violin or viol!"

Dr. J. Marshall (Jack) Bevil is a native of Houston, where he also currently lives. He is both a string music educator and a musicologist (B.Mus. with honors, Oklahoma Baptist University , 1970; M.Mus. - Musicology, University of North Texas , 1973; Ph.D. - Musicology, University of North Texas, 1984) with specialization in the history of bowed string instruments, oral-aural musical transmission, British and British-American folk music, and British popular and academic music of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His doctoral dissertation on the centonate, or oral-aural transmittive, process in Southern Appalachian folksong has been published by University Microfilms, International ( UMI No. 8423854, "Dissertation Services"), and he has published post-doctoral studies in professional journals and presented papers in his areas of specialization, including computer-assisted musical analysis, at regional, national, and international academic convocations in both the United States and Great Britain. He also is the author of encyclopedia articles on John Avery Lomax, Alan Lomax, and Percy Aldridge Grainger; and he has published on the Internet. In addition to his pedagogic and academic pursuits, he is a performer on the crwth, a composer and arranger for string and vocal ensembles (publications on www.sibeliusmusic.com from December of 2004), and a forensic musicological consultant and expert witness in copyright and intellectual property misappropriation disputes.

1.What prompted you to make the decision to study Celtic music, and why did you specialize in the Crwth?

"I have been aware of my predominately Celtic roots almost ever since I can remember. As a small child, I used to listen to my great-aunt, who was born in 1871, sing some of the old ballads. She and my maternal grandparents, with whom I spent many idyllic childhood summer days, had a lot of the old-country expressions in their speech, even though they were born and raised in the American Midwest. My grandfather Marshall, while not a practicing musician himself, was a lover of fiddle music and owned several shellac-disc recordings of the Irish fiddler Patrick Gaffney in performance. I still remember playing “Green Grow the Rushes, Oh!” over and over, on my grandparents' “wind-up” 1915 Victrola that I now own along with the collection of records, most of which have survived several moves.

My investigation of the crwth started in 1965-1966, during my senior year in high school (S.P. Waltrip, Houston), when my studies in English focused on British literature. I volunteered to find out what Dylan Thomas was speaking of in “Under Milk Wood” with his reference to the crwth and also to parchs (ministers). Already being a violinist, I was fascinated with what I learned about the crwth, gathered more than enough information to mightily tax the patience of the classmates to whom I subsequently discoursed, but personally was left with far more questions than answers. Even from that quick, cursory investigation, I became aware of the many conflicting views about the crwth’s origin, its development, its function, and its place within the large and diverse chordophone, or string, family. Demands of college kept all the questions largely on the back burner for the next four years, except in the case of a research project that I did in my senior year, in connection with which the crwth came up again as a tangential issue. Unable to get it out of my mind and, frankly, being more than a little irritated over being unable to answer a lot of nagging questions to my own satisfaction, I took up the matter in earnest the following year in graduate school at the University of North Texas (1970-’71), as a semester project in my first musicological research seminar. The result was what even then I felt to be a less than satisfactory, seventy-page study that presented the often diametrically opposed views of earlier investigators such as John Hawkins, Anthony Baines, Kathleen Schlesinger, Hortense Panum, Karl Geiringer, Arnold Dolmetsch, and others. While my professor commended me heartily, I was still far from satisfied, so I deliberately spent an extra year and summer on my master’s degree in order to bring closure to something that had been bedeviling me for years. My research took me far beyond the University of North Texas Music Library and other American repositories to the British Museum, the National Library of Wales, Durham Cathedral Library, the library of Trinity College in Dublin, the Welsh Folk Museum in Sain Ffagan, numerous sites where important icons exist such as Worcester Cathedral and St. Mary’s Church in Shrewsbury, and the homes of a number of live informants across the water. The final product was a thesis that, even with substantial cuts, reached dissertation proportions before wrap-up and nearly drove me mad but, at the same time, was a pleasure to prepare. For a number of years after its presentation in 1973, I maintained a running, annually updated volume of addenda that took into account studies that came out after the completion of my thesis, until doctoral study and both teaching and research fellowships forced me, after more than a decade, to lay the matter aside. I still perform from time to time on the crwth, and I still occasionally run across something new in the way of valuable information, such as iconographic evidence. I have no illusions (or delusions) of having answered all questions once and for all, so it’s something to which I plan to return after retirement from teaching, probably sometime within the next couple of years."

2. How widespread was knowledge of the crwth when you began your studies? How difficult was it to obtain information/source materials?

"There was a fairly large amount of superficial knowledge, along with a huge volume of often contradictory theory about both the crwth’s origin and its place in the string family, particularly with regard to its relationship to the violin and its kin. Source materials were rather plentiful, but many of them were both brief and dated, even in 1966. Further, most of them treated the crwth as a side issue, relegating it to the category of curious anachronisms among string instruments. It wasn’t until I located the Meredydd Morris monograph, in the Welsh Folk Museum, that I found a whole book-length document on the subject; and even it, while of enormous value in terms of the place of the crwth in Welsh folk culture, was of limited usefulness in terms of technical matters. My reconstructions of both the genealogy of the crwth and the playing techniques were dependent on an understanding of the entire string family in general and fiddles and fiddling in particular.

As one who was still something of a novice investigator, I had to learn quickly how to pull the necessary strings to obtain access to materials that were in closed-stack holdings, which most of the British repositories were. Fortunately, my major professor had anticipated that and prepared for me a letter of introduction that helped greatly everywhere except the British Museum, where one stickler of a bureaucrat informed me that they did not accept recommendations from American professors, and that I needed to get a recommendation from, perhaps, Thurston Dart at King’s College, London. When I told him that such was quite impossible in light of Professor Dart’s rather recent demise (eliciting a giggle from a pretty girl behind the desk who did not care for the bureaucrat and later told me that she was so glad that he’d been caught in an error), I was told to go to the American Embassy. I later learned that such shenanigans were not official museum policy, but merely reflective of one small individual’s prejudice. At any rate, armed with my letter from the American Embassy, I ultimately gained entrance to not only the reading room but also the special manuscripts room of the British Museum, where ink pens are verboten and even turning a page with a pencil in one’s hand is a cardinal sin.

The Welsh Folk Museum was wonderfully accommodating, not only furnishing sources that I requested but also assigning two staff members to assist me during the several days that I was working there. Assistance with translating the archaic colloquial Welsh in a number of documents was of enormous help, and my assistants even tracked down some material that I had previously known nothing about, including the Morris monograph. In addition, I was allowed to examine, photograph, and measure each of the original instruments and reproductions in the museum’s holdings.

I would have hit an unyielding, insurmountable wall at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth had it not been for the assistance of a librarian who aided me with documents written not only in the characteristic backhand script of the fifteenth century but also in late medieval Welsh."