January 2011
This has been a quiet month for us except that we are proud to announce that our accompanist, Rhian, is expecting her first child. Congratulations to Rhian and Ben and we all hope that everything goes well. We are also busy preparing for our fourth visit to Disneyland, Paris for the Welsh Festival taking place on March 5th and 6th.
March 2011 – Disneyland, Paris.
We completed our 4th visit to the St David’s Welsh Festival in Disneyland, Paris. This took place over the weekend of 5th – 6th March and was, as always, a great success (see the Gallery for a selection of photos).
We left Swansea on Thursday 4th and, once again, stopped off at Wootton Bassett to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in respect of soldiers who have lost their lives in recent conflict. Although there was no repatriation that day we sang 2 hymns to a small assembled group, including the Mayor of Wootton Bassett and the chairman of the British Legion, who organised our visit. We also presented our choir plaque to the Mayor. We then had a carvery lunch at Sally Pussey’s Inn and made our way to St. Pancras International to catch the Eurostar train. We arrived in Paris and were met by Isabelle, who took us to the coach which transported us to Disneyland. This year we stayed at the Newport Bay Club Hotel – the largest hotel on the property and, with 1,083 rooms, one of the largest hotels in Europe.
We were very fortunate to have a completely free day on the Friday and some of the choristers took advantage of a day in the Park. Other members decided to go to Paris for the day, while 8 played golf at Golf Disneyland. Following this we are forming our own golf society and will be arranging further golf days during the summer.
On Saturday we went to the Disneyland Festival Stage in Fantasyland for a sound check and we then performed 3 concerts during the day. Once again, we were joined by the Urdd Eisteddfod winners at each concert and this proved a great success. The theatre was full for all three concerts and a tremendous atmosphere was created, each concert ending with the National Anthem.
Sunday morning came too early (!), and we performed another 3 concerts, this time on our own, to very good audiences. It is estimated that we sang to around 2,000 people during the weekend, from countries all over Europe. After our last concert we had a photograph taken, with ‘Minnie Mouse’ appropriately dressed in a Welsh costume, outside the theatre and presented the Disneyland staff, who looked after us during the weekend, with gifts from Wales.
We then retired to our hotel, where we had dinner in the restaurant and then had our customary ‘afterglow’, which went on long into the night. It was great to have Sue Arondel join us during the evening, as it was Sue who contacted all the choirs 4 years ago when we were chosen for the event. She is also very involved with the Urdd Eisteddfod winners performing in Disneyland and will be coming to Swansea to attend this year’s Eisteddfod.
The Welsh Festival is clearly going from strength to strength and we are delighted to be involved. We had 36 choristers this year and many say that this was the best yet and huge thanks go again, to our secretary, Alan Clewett, for his wonderful organisation. Thanks also to Isabelle, Sogwilli, and Sophie for looking after us and, of course, to Nick, Rhian and Steve for their hard work in preparing the choir.
March-April 2011
We sadly reported the passing away of Rose, wife of Cliff Prosser, 2nd tenor with the choir.
We gave a concert at All Saints Church, Kilvey on Sunday 27th. This was organised by Rev. Andrew Meredith to raise money for the ongoing work at the church. The roof had been repaired and further redecoration work was being carried out. They must have done a great job as the roof remained firmly ‘on’, despite our best efforts to remove it! There was a good audience who thoroughly enjoyed our singing and the boys were given a standing ovation as they walked out through the church at the end. The good news from the evening was that Mr Geoff Wheel agreed to become our president. A former Welsh rugby ‘great’ from the 1970’s, Geoff is also organist at All Saints and he is delighted to be appointed. More to follow on this.
We sang at a wedding in Murton Chapel on Friday April 8th. Lynn Allderdice, daughter of Bob Allderdice, Captain of Clyne Golf Club was married. We sang before the ceremony and included ‘The Skye Boat Song, as a number of guests had travelled from the Isle of Skye to be at the wedding. We also sang 2 items during the signing of the register.
Our annual dinner was held at the Gower Golf Club on Saturday 16th and attended by over 60 choristers and partners. The evening was well organised by Lawrence Sutton and the entertainment was provided by Paul Tabram. The meal was, once again, excellent and a very enjoyable evening was had by everyone.
May 2011
On Sunday May 1st we sang at the wedding of Anne-Marie Evans and Troy Clements at St Joseph’s Cathedral. It was an early start and unfortunately, through no fault of our own, we did not have time to sing before the ceremony. However, we sang ‘The Rose’ and ‘Calon Lan’ during the signing of the register and were then asked to sing an extra item, ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight’. Both bride and groom were delighted with our singing and have left a message on our ‘Guestbook’ to say thanks.
We gave a charity concert at Bishopston Village Hall on May 12th for Christian Aid. There was a small but enthusiastic audience, who enjoyed our evening of entertainment.
June 2011
 Northampton
We travelled to Northampton over the weekend of 4th and 5th June. Our first engagement was for the wedding of Jo Tyson, daughter of John Morgan, one of our 1st basses. This took place in All Saints Church, West Haddon, a small village 10 miles from Northampton. We sang a number of items before the wedding and the bride walked in to the singing of ‘O Gymru’. We sang ‘The Rose’ and ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight’ during the signing of the register, and the happy couple walked out to ‘The Rhythm Of Life’. We then had some refreshments, supplied by John, and made our way to Northampton.
We stayed at The Lime Tree Hotel, and had a short rest before changing for our concert in Mount Pleasant Baptist Church on Kettering Road. This venue had been set up by Charles Clewett, who had previously sung there with another choir (‘Voices of Pembroke’) a few years earlier. It was also great to have Charles along with us for the weekend. We had a short rehearsal to check the acoustics, which were excellent, and then had tea which was prepared by church members.
The evening was compered by the Rev Paul Lavender, who also played some excellent piano solos during the concert. We were able to sing two new items to our repertoire, Schubert’s ‘Sanctus’ and ‘The Longest Time’ by Billy Joel. The concert was a great success, enjoyed by all, and raised over £500 for the church’s organ fund.
Following the concert we went to the Old Northamtonians Rugby Club for some refreshment and more singing, and returned to the hotel, later, to continue the ‘afterglow’.
Thanks must go to Stephen Wilson, who did a fantastic job accompanying the choir during the weekend. Also, thanks to Lawrence Sutton, who arranged the weekend in the absence of Alan, who was away on holiday.
On Sunday 12th June we travelled down by coach to Merthyr Church, which is a few miles west of Carmarthen. It was a wet, miserable and misty night, and we were sure that it was a very pretty place, but we couldn’t appreciate the scenery! In fact, the concert had been re-arranged from last November, and it felt more like autumn than summer. The evening was arranged by William Bott, after hearing us in a concert last year, and he also arranged for 4 young musicians to perform as soloists. They were all excellent and included was Osian Dafydd, who will perform with us again in our annual concert in a few weeks time. The church was full and we had a great ovation at the end of the concert. The evening concluded with the National Anthem and refreshments were provided by members of the church. Many thanks to William for organising the evening and also for driving the bus.
Annual Concert, June 25th 2011
What an amazing night! It was held in All Saints Church, Oystermouth, which was packed to the rafters, with extra chairs being put out to accommodate the audience. We had 50 choristers on stage, the biggest choir the Gwalia Singers has ever assembled. However, it all started on a disappointing note when our compere, Kevin Johns, had to pull out at short notice due to illness, but our new president, Geoff Wheel, stepped into the breach and did a great job.
We opened with ‘Let All Men Sing’ and then sang the beautiful ‘Sanctus’ by Schubert. Our first section ended with ‘An American Trilogy’ which featured Rhian on the piano and Steve on the organ, and gained rapturous applause. The first soloist for the evening was Jonathan Lycett who is well known in Swansea for taking leading roles in many musical productions. He started with ‘Secret Love’ from ‘Calamity Jane’ and finished with the ‘Anthem’ from ‘Chess’ by Andersson and Ulvaeus. Next up was Osian Dafydd, a talented young violinist, who won the under 19 string instrumental competition at the National Urdd Eisteddfod in 2010. He played the very technical ‘Zigeunerweisen’ by Sarasate.
Before our final section of the first half, we made a number of presentations. Our chairman, Des Criddle, paid tribute to 3 members of the choir, Vernon Simons, Mal Herbert and Terry Osbourne, who have given outstanding service to the choir.
Vernon, Mal and Terry receiving presentations from Geoff Wheel
We then sang 3 Welsh items Llanfair, Ar Hyd y Nos, and Cwm Rhondda to end the first half. The last piece again featured Rhian and Steve in partnership with the choir.
We started the 2nd half with ‘Seize The Day’ from Disney’s ‘Newsies’ and followed this with Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’. Then came Robbie Williams’ ‘Angels’ and we finished with an ‘a capella’ version of Billy Joel’s ‘The Longest Time’. This features 6 members of the choir singing the solo part backed by the rest of the choir. Our next soloist was cellist, Saran Davies, who won the regional Texaco Rotary Club competition in 2011. She played ‘Rondo’ by Boccherini and ‘Jewish Song’ by Bloch, and was then joined by Osian to play ‘Passacaglia’ by Handel von Johan Halvorsen. This is a very difficult and technical piece which they pulled off brilliantly. Both were accompanied by Dr Jonathan Morgan.
Jonathan then sang his final section which ended with the very moving ‘This Is The Moment’ from the musical Jeckyll and Hyde. He was accompanied through the evening by Chris Pike. Our final section continued the musical theme when we sung the beautiful ‘Bring Him Home’ from Les Miserables and our final item was ‘Sinatra’, a medley of songs starting and finishing with ‘New York, New York’ arranged by Alan Simmons. A prolonged applause followed, which showed the audience’s appreciation for a wonderful concert. Presentations to the guest artistes followed and the evening ended with the Welsh National Anthem.
Many thanks must go to Nick, our MD, for all his hard work, and to our accompanists Rhian and Steve.
A selection of photos from the night are available to view in the gallery.
