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
+44 (0)29 2063 5640
â–¶ Introduction
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â–¶ 1. WOMEX in the 2000s – Where were the Welsh?
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▶ 2. A Wales WOMEX bid?​
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â–¶ 3. The legacy objectives
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â–¶ 4. The bid process and Winning the bid
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â–¶ 5. WOMEX 2013 – Croeso!
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â–¶ 6. BBC Wales & Womex
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▶ 7. The legacies​
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▶ 8. New developments​
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â–¶ 9. Looking ahead
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â–¶ 10. Case Studies
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â–¶ Introduction
​
â–¶ 1. WOMEX in the 2000s – Where were the Welsh?
​
▶ 2. A Wales WOMEX bid?​
​
â–¶ 3. The legacy objectives
​
â–¶ 4. The bid process and Winning the bid
​
â–¶ 5. WOMEX 2013 – Croeso!
​
â–¶ 6. BBC Wales & Womex
​
▶ 7. The legacies​
​
▶ 8. New developments​
​
â–¶ 9. Looking ahead
​
â–¶ 10. Case Studies
​
​
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8. New developments
So much has happened over the last decade since WOMEX in Cardiff, it’s not surprising that most people are hard pushed to name specific changes when asked what’s different in the Welsh music scene today. There are, of course, the tangible projects, such as the aforementioned Horizons partnership and Wales’s ongoing participation in the indigeneity debates. But overwhelmingly what people cite is an increase in confidence and a change in attitude – whether that’s within Welsh artists themselves or how people elsewhere regard Welsh music.
There is no way you guys could have produced a showcase of that quality even five years ago – what Wales is doing now is really impressive.
Confidence & attitude
KilBride from Trac Cymru has spent much of his career travelling as a musician and outlines what he sees as the most significant post-WOMEX difference: “For most of my time in the world music market, I have had to explain who we are as a people, where we come from, what we do, what our names are, what our language sounds like. I don’t have to explain who we are anymore and I think that is a tremendous legacy.”
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Former Welsh Music Foundation director, musician Dafydd Roberts also acknowledges a shift in attitude: “I’m really proud of the fact that we did manage to bring it to Cardiff and that it came off. I think the attitudes did change after that. People are far readier to travel and to think about a living touring outside of Wales.”
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Rimes, whose latest trio VRï formed post-WOMEX, concedes that things are changing, albeit slowly: “It’s been an incremental process, but it feels a lot nicer rocking up places now and being the Welsh band; it’s quite a subtly different experience to how it was five or ten years ago.”
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Davies from Mwldan gives a broader picture: “If you look at where Welsh music is now – I mean contemporary, world, folk, traditional – generally speaking, that whole genre is unrecognisably stronger than it was ten years ago. It’s fabulous. And I think there’s been a real explosion of diversity and talent, and people that have got aspirations of world-class quality of content and performance, whereas that really didn’t exist ten years ago.”
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To emphasise his point, Davies reflects on the Welsh showcase that Mwldan co-produced in January 2023 at Celtic Connections in Glasgow as part of Showcase Scotland, where VRï, Cerys Hafana and Gwilym Bowen Rhys all performed. “Two or three people came up to me afterwards and said, ‘there is no way you guys could have produced a showcase of that quality even five years ago – what Wales is doing now is really impressive’. I guess, collectively, lots of people have raised their games. But it’s not particularly organised, it’s kind of organic.”
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Mandelson, who was present at that showcase in Glasgow, adds his view on the change in Welsh artists. “They’re not shy anymore, they’re out there doing stuff. There’s definitely much more of a confidence and more opportunities now.”
Davies concedes that while events such as WOMEX have had an impact in raising the aspiration – collectively or individually – of what might be possible, there are other factors at play. “You can’t say that rappers or grime artists, like Sage Todz or Mace the Great are developing now because of WOMEX, it would be ridiculous to make that kind of claim. So something is happening at the same time where lots of emerging music is starting to burst out, and it’s very diverse in terms of genre.”
#WelshMusicAbroad
One of the organisations that has been riding the wave of Welsh emerging talent is FOCUS Wales, a showcase event and festival held each year in Wrexham. Initially, when it launched back in 2010, it was largely involved in promoting new indie music, but it now works across genres and recently they’ve launched a new partnership with Trac Cymru and TÅ· Cerdd called #WelshMusicAbroad. It’s a partnership that was set up to create opportunities for artists to work internationally. As TÅ· Cerdd’s Deborah Keyser concedes: “What’s still required in Wales for artists is support and more expertise on the ground. Our focus is constantly reaching out to these showcase events overseas – it’s a pragmatic response to some of those infrastructure things that we have identified specifically through the artist development programmes.”
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“It’s a way of formalising what we’ve been doing informally over the past three years,” explains KilBride. “Exactly how that will pan out, we’re not entirely sure, but the focus is on getting the music of Wales to the rest of the world.” Davies acknowledges the work that Trac Cymru, FOCUS Wales and TÅ· Cerdd are doing and also praises Clwb Ifor Bach, a venue in Cardiff, for the work they do in developing rock and pop artists, but he’s unequivocal about the lack of investment into infrastructure: “There’s been all this organic stuff that’s been going on that’s generally been really moving the sector on enormously. But these are largely showcase opportunities. While there have been numerous attempts to develop artists, some of us within the industry have been saying for a long time we need to invest in the infrastructure which means management, agencies, PR, all the stuff that goes alongside supporting artists to grow and develop.”
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Hâf from WAI doesn’t deny this need, but points out that “at the same time, we’ve had an economic collapse, we’ve had Brexit, we’ve had COVID, and yet, we have a sector which is at the most vibrant it’s been in terms of the artistic talent, confidence and creativity. There’s still more to do. Definitely. Job’s not done, but it’s in a much better place.”
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Music education
Something that musician Angharad Jenkins says is still on her wish-list is to have “a national place to learn about our traditional music in a conservatoire or academy as part of a university degree”. She feels this would “raise the stature of our music” and boost confidence. Although there is currently no folk music degree course on offer in Wales, she concedes that there have been some notable recent advances in higher education, namely that her Calan bandmate Rimes is now teaching folk music at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD) in Cardiff in the string department. “It’s a great development,” she says, while also mentioning the head of music Tim Rhys-Evans, “who is very interested in contemporary Welsh-ness”.
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Rimes joined the staff at the RWCMD two years ago. “My role is about introducing traditional music into that curriculum, which we’re doing quite incrementally and surreptitiously!” he smiles. “It’s a real sea change from when I studied there briefly in 2014, when it felt like traditional music as a whole, certainly in what the college was booking in their concert series, was very conspicuous by its absence.” Now, Rimes says, there is all kinds of world music being programmed and it’s having a trickle-down effect into what they’re teaching to the students: “It definitely feels like the will is there for something more concrete and a fuller degree programme.”
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KilBride reckons this will undoubtedly have an impact on future musicians: “I think there’s been a change in recognising what a career in music is. Because when I started, all I wanted to do was play guitar and save the world one folk song at the time!” He acknowledges that these days it’s crucial for musicians to embrace a ‘portfolio career’, meaning that they don’t solely concentrate on being a performer. It’s something that Rimes is keen to emphasise too. “There are so many really great, really fulfilling career paths for people to follow, besides performing ones.” Rimes feels what is needed is more frank and honest conversations with music students from an earlier point. “Certainly when I was there, it was a fairly taboo subject. Everyone was on this treadmill, being funnelled towards orchestral roles.”
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As the national development organisation for Wales’s traditional music, Trac have been instrumental in the pioneering National Youth Folk Ensemble programme which has been running now for around six years. AVANC is its current success story, a collective of young musicians who showcased at Celtic Connections in 2022, and this year they performed at the Festival Interceltique de Lorient in Brittany. “I’m not sure if this is a direct consequence of hosting WOMEX but again, it’s part of the trickle-down effect and the overall change in attitude, but certainly having the National Youth Folk Ensemble programme would have seemed inconceivable pre-2013.”
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Eisteddfod & TÅ· Gwerin
One of the examples that crops up again and again when discussing how attitudes have changed within the traditional Welsh music scene is the rising popularity of the TÅ· Gwerin (Folk House) stage at the National Eisteddfod. Initially created as a meeting point for folk traditions, since 2014 it’s included workshops and performances, all hosted in a huge yurt. “There wasn’t a stage for folk music at the Eisteddfod which is crazy, and there was so much resistance to it,” remembers Jenkins. She’s clearly thrilled with how things have moved on: “What’s happening at the Eisteddfod at the moment is amazing, it’s so diverse! The language is the big thing that ties them all together but there’s so much creativity.” As Dafydd Roberts remarks, it’s in danger of becoming a victim of its own success, such has been the popularity of the TÅ· Gwerin that this year for the first time they had to install crowd control barriers: “There’s a big dilemma now, are they going to go for something bigger, or will you lose the atmosphere that they’ve got there which is fantastic.” One of the biggest draws at TÅ· Gwerin this summer were Pedair, a new four-piece featuring some of Wales’s leading female voices: Gwenan Gibbard, Gwyneth Glyn, Meinir Gwilym and Siân James. The group drew huge crowds and were awarded the Welsh Language Album of the Year prize for their debut Mae ‘na olau. Coincidentally three of the four singers in Pedair featured in WOMEX’s 2013 opening gala concert and Glyn showcased as part of Ghazalaw, confirming the fact that many of the musicians who were making waves ten years ago are still very prominent on the scene today.
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Celebrating Welsh talent new (and old)
Besides winning the Eisteddfod prize, Pedair were also nominated in the Welsh Folk Awards this year, an initiative launched in 2019 by Trac, BBC Wales, Radio Cymru and Arts Council of Wales. As Jenkins says, it’s just another affirmation in the rising popularity of Welsh folk music: “These awards just give status and a chance to celebrate our music.” As a nod to his enduring appeal, Dafydd Iwan won Best Solo Artist and Best Original Welsh Song for ‘Yma o Hyd’. But while there were many established names on the list of awards and nominations (Calan, The Trials of Cato, Alaw, The Gentle Good), there were plenty of accolades for Wales’s young rising stars, such as Mari Mathias and triple harp player Cerys Hafana. Mandelson remarks on the current wave of new Welsh artists: The phrase we always have at WOMEX is ‘making your presence felt’. And I think the kind of artists that are coming up in Wales are real tradition wranglers; they’re really doing things that are new and dynamic. They’re not stuck in the way some traditional music areas are – very ‘it’s this way or no way’. The Welsh are going, ‘we’ll do whatever we want!’
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