Cerdd Hwyr: Côr Dre

5 April 2023, 9:30pm

Côr Dre was founded in 2007 by a group of young people who were looking to sing and socialize and the first rehearsals were held at Salem Chapel, Caernarfon with about 15 members.

By spring 2013 Sian Wheway joined as leader and is the current Director of Music.

During the past decade, there have been many successes, including choral awards in local and national Eisteddfodau, the Festival Choir at the Pan Celtic Festival in Derry 2015, reaching the 2017 Wales Choir, and the top prize in the Welsh Eisteddfod Choir competition at Llanrwst National Eisteddfod 2019. Apart from competing, the choir has released a CD, performed at “Te yn y Grug” with Al Lewis and “Tylwyth” by Dafydd James, regularly appeared on S4C and recorded background voices for John Owen Jones, Dafydd Iwan and Dewi “Pws” Morris.

The choir remains as busy as ever, practicing weekly at Caersalem Chapel, Caernarfon and now, has grown to 70 members!

Membership link: cor_dre@hotmail.co.uk Tel: 07818 424708

Late Night Music: Ben Creighton Griffiths

6 April 2023, 9:00pm

Electro-Acoustic Jazz Harp

Sponsored by Telynau Vining Harps

Ben Creighton Griffiths is an Internationally Touring Jazz and Classical harpist, composer, and band leader based in Wales. He made his international debut at the 2004 1er Concours International de Harpe in Nantes, France where, aged 7, he came second in the Under 18 division. In 2006 he won the Under 13 Division of the Wales International Harp Festival before going on to win the 2008 Junior Lily Laskine competition in Paris, winning a concert harp in the process. Since then, he has earned an enviable performing reputation with tours to USA, Canada, Brazil, French Caribbean, India, Hong Kong, and across Europe. As well as his solo jazz work he performs with numerous orchestras at both Symphony and Chamber size and is a founding member of electro-fusion band Chube and the Transatlantic Hot Club – a hot club and swing band featuring Ben on harp and Adrien Chevalier on violin. www.bjcg.co.uk

Late Night Music: Cerys Hafana – Triple Harp & Voice

7 April 2023, 9:00pm

Cerys Hafana is a composer and multi-instrumentalist who mangles, mutates, and transforms traditional music. She explores the creative possibilities and unique qualities of the triple harp, and is also interested in found sounds, archival materials and electronic processing. She comes from Machynlleth, Wales, where rivers and roads meet on the way to the sea.

Edyf is her second album, released in 2022, and was selected as one of The Guardian’s Top Ten folk albums of 2022. In January 2023, Cerys was also featured on Cerys Matthews’ BBC 6 Music ‘Highlights of 2022’ New Year show.

Edyf is largely based on material found in the Welsh National Library’s online archive, including fragments of Psalm tunes, hymns about doomsday and philosophical musings on the length of eternity, along with some original compositions. The album is primarily performed on the Welsh triple harp, but also features bodhrán, double bass, althorn and the electronically processed sounds of a water bottle being hit.

Supper Concert

9:00pm Concert
Parker Ramsay (Harp)
The Street by Nico Muhly (b.1981) and Alice Goodman (b.1958)

The Street is a set of meditations on the fourteen stations of the cross scored for solo harp. The spark for each movement is original texts by Alice Goodman, which are simultaneously specific, evocative, mysterious, and poetic. Often, a single line will provide the starting-point for the music; when Jesus is condemned to death (Station I), Goodman describes the crowd shouting “crucify him”: “the pitch dropping as it passes where you stand.”

Parker Ramsay is a performer, writer and public speaker. Equally at home on modern and period harps, he passionately pursues new and underperformed works and bringing the instrument to new audiences.

He has collaborated with Marcos Balter, Nico Muhly and Josh Levine, with commissions and premieres at the Miller Theatre at Columbia University, the Phillips Collection, the Spoleto Festival USA, IRCAM, the Princeton Sound Kitchen, King’s College, Cambridge and the Canada Council for the Arts. Forthcoming projects include collaborations with Sarah Kirkland Snider, Jared Miller, Aida Shirazi and inti-figgis vizueta.

Alongside gambist Arnie Tanimoto, Parker is co-director of A Golden Wire, a period instrument ensemble based in New York. He has presented talks, performances and lectures on period instruments at the Smithsonian Collection and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has been published in VAN Magazine, Early Music America Magazine, the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Raised in Tennessee, Parker began harp studies with his mother, Carol McClure. He holds degrees from Cambridge, Oberlin and Juilliard. He lives in New York City.

Farewell Party

11 April 2023, 9:30pm