Ar hyn of bryd mae'r cynnwys hwn ar gael yn Saesneg yn unig.
Ar hyn of bryd mae'r cynnwys hwn ar gael yn Saesneg yn unig.
Ar hyn of bryd mae'r cynnwys hwn ar gael yn Saesneg yn unig.
hyrwyddo a dathlu cerddoriaeth Cymru
promoting and celebrating the music of Wales
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5. WOMEX 2013 – Croeso!
The opening night of WOMEX is traditionally an opportunity for the host country to show the very best of what they have to offer to all the attending international delegates. In Wales, at Cardiff’s Wales Millennium Centre, the artistic direction of the gala concert was entrusted to one of the country’s most high-profile musicians and broadcasters – and champion of all things Welsh – Cerys Matthews. Having been to similar events and previous editions of WOMEX, she was, she says, a fan of the concept of the sharing of music cross-borders: “I’m all in for enjoying great music!” she smiles.
When tasked with coming up with an idea for the concert, Matthews says it felt pretty obvious. Having worked in London as a Welsh language and English language broadcaster, what struck her was there was not enough knowledge about the indigenous culture of Wales in Britain. As Matthews explained to the BBC presenter Bethan Elfyn who interviewed her for a documentary about the event: “We’ve been known as the Land of Song for over a hundred years now, and I thought oh gosh, is that a cliché? But then I thought, no I’m going to run with this, because we’ve got a lot of visiting delegates coming from all over the world, all mad music fans who work in the industry, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to collect together the most distinctive traditions that we have in Wales and make a great show of them so that we could stamp a brilliant and indelible Welsh mark on these delegates.”
Matthews’s passion for music from all over the world is well known, especially by anyone who has listened to her BBC Radio 6 Music show where since 2010 she has excelled in creating the most eclectic playlists to be heard anywhere on the BBC. “I was interested in Mali as a land of song and Estonia… there are many lands of songs, so it was the obvious choice,” she says about the theme for the opening concert. “But I felt like it was such a great opportunity to finally be able to say, well, this is my understanding of this particular indigenous culture.”
Entitled Gwlad y Gân – Land of Song, the concert promised to take viewers on a journey through 30,000 years of Welsh history, culture and music: “a chronological smorgasbord of what I understood to be particularly distinctive Welsh culture across the eras, across centuries, even across the millennia,” explains Matthews.
It was a bold and audacious ambition and one that certainly conveyed the sheer variety of what was included: an at times overwhelming spectacle of Wales’s most iconic musical traditions, from the crwth (ancient bowed lyre), pibgorn (pipe horn), clog, step and ballet dancing, cerdd dant (Welsh vocal improvisation accompanied by harp), male voice choirs… and of course, not one but three triple harps!
Matthews clearly relished the occasion: “This was an opportunity that I’ve dreamt about all my life because I’ve been so lucky to have been born within the middle of this culture, happened to have been born bilingual… to absolutely love the history of music and culture and history in general. And knowing that this was quite secretive, that so few people knew about it.”
Acting as omnipresent musician and narrator, sporting her customary hat and guitar, Matthews guided a veritable ‘who’s who’ of Welsh musical talent through the proceedings. “I was really lucky to be able to ask so many talented people to be part of a wonderful night,” she says. The featured artists included Twm Morys, who she describes as “an absolute wealth of talent and knowledge, a great poet, bard, musician. And a huge hero of mine.”
The Land of Song house-band featured Patrick Rimes, Gwenan Gibbard, Andy Coughlan, Frank Moon and Mason Neely and besides them, there were guest slots featuring DnA – the mother and daughter duo of Delyth and Angharad Jenkins, who performed tunes to a backdrop of black & white footage of some classic Welsh scenes, from rugby players and Eisteddfod bards, to Welsh screen icon Richard Burton. Other musicians to feature included rising star Georgia Ruth, who sang a duet with Matthews, a triple harp duet by Robin Huw Bowen and Rhiain Bebb, and, prior to their own dedicated WOMEX showcase two days later, the debut performance of Ghazalaw, a special Welsh-Urdu project featuring ghazal singer Tauseef Akhtar and Welsh singer-songwriter Gwyneth Glyn.
The all-singing, all-dancing, grand finale had everyone returning to the stage to join the Treorchy Male Choir along with children from Mount Stuart Primary School for an emotional final rendition of ‘Calon Lân’ (A Pure Heart), led by a beaming Matthews, who exuded enthusiasm and Welsh pride. There was no denying that everyone in the auditorium had been fully initiated into what Wales had to offer, even if at times it felt akin to having been hit by a Welsh whirlwind. “It just felt like it was the right time for it,” Matthews comments on the whole WOMEX experience. “I think the big thing that came out of it was connections, knowledge, and a little curiosity on both sides,” she adds with a smile.