Following more than eighteen months of hard work and organisation, we held our 50th anniversary concert. The committee had worked tirelessly and the evening was a spectacular success.

We performed at the marvellous Brangwyn Hall and we had an audience in excess of 600 people. The compère for the concert was BBC’s Roy Noble, who did a fantastic job in making the evening flow so well. He told a number of humorous anecdotes and welcomed the choir and artistes on to stage with a great knowledge of the items being performed. 

We were resplendent in our new uniforms and opened the concert with ‘Sanctaidd Ior’, the great Welsh Hymn, which was arranged by our musical team, and accompanied, by Rhian, and Steve, on the organ, and, indeed, it was a wonderful sound. We followed this with Robat Arwyn’s ‘Benedictus’ and Malotte’s emotional arrangement of ‘The Lord’s Prayer’.

We finished our first section with the spiritual ‘I’m Gonna Walk’. Roy welcomed our first guest, Shan Cothi, to the stage. Shan is a well known Welsh personality and is a versatile performer in both classical and musical theatre. She is also an experienced actress, television and radio presenter in Wales. Shan has also performed outside Wales and played ‘Carlotta’ for fifteen months in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s West End production of ‘Phantom of the Opera’. On coming to the stage Shan had picked up the great atmosphere that had been created in the hall and her first item was Dvorak’s ‘Rusalka’s ‘Song to the Moon’ finishing  her first set with ‘Think of Me’ from ‘Phantom’. A beautiful performance. 

Our other guest, Trystan Llyr Griffiths then came to the stage and started with ‘La Donna e Mobile’ from Rigoletto by Verdi. Trystan was named the ‘Voice of Wales’ in 2012 by Decca records and was also the first recipient of a study award from the Bryn Terfel Foundation. This year he made his professional operatic debut performing ‘Ferrando’ in ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’ for Scottish Opera. He then sang two Welsh items ‘Bugail Aberdyfi’ and ‘Arafa Don’. For his final item, the choir joined him for the wonderful ‘Morte Christe’ with Trystan singing the 3rd verse. We stayed on stage to complete the first half singing ‘Prayer’ from ‘Lohengrin’ and ‘Light A Candle’, arranged by our former MD Simon Oram, who we were so pleased to welcome back from Pontypool for the concert. Our final item was our own arrangement of songs from the First World War entitled ‘Memories of the Great War’ which finishes with the choir and audience singing ‘Pack up your troubles’.

The second half opened with our Chairman, Clive Walters, giving a short talk about the choir and thanked numerous people for their hard work and commitment in putting the concert together. We then sang ‘Rhythm of Life’ followed by ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ by ‘Keane’. Among our guests for the evening were nine people from Mannheim, Germany, as, for many years, we have had a connection with GV Teutonia 1862, a male voice choir from Feudenheim. On one of our visits in 2007 they wanted to present us with a gift and asked what we would like. They very kindly bought a set of copies of ‘You Raise Me Up’ arranged by Alan Simmons, and this was the next item we sang with three of our baritones, Gareth John, Craig Thomas and Rob Smith, taking the solo line. We ended this section with our own arrangement of the wonderful Earl Brown song ‘I Can Dream’. Trystan then came back to sing ‘Anthem’ from ‘Chess’, ‘Morricone’s ‘Nella Fantasia’ and ending with the famous ‘Granada’. Following this Shan sang ‘I feel Pretty’ from West Side Story and Puccini’s ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’.

Her final item required a bit of support from a couple of people! 
She asked Roy Noble to join her and also Craig, from the choir to perform ‘Laughing Song’ from Die Fledermaus. This was a great end to Shan’s items, which showed off her wonderful performing ability, and she had a tremendous ovation. The choir then joined with Shan to sing the atmospheric ‘O Gymru’, a very patriotic Welsh song, to a brilliant new arrangement by Jeff Howard.

Shan sang it with terrific power and emotion and the ending, with the choir, was superb. It was also great to have the arranger, Jeff Howard, as accompanist to the soloists for the evening. He was a wonderful addition to the evening and, of course, was a member of ‘Only Men Aloud’ and is the present MD of Treorchy Male Choir.

Sian and Trystan then sang the wonderful duet ‘Time to Say Goodbye’ which brought to an end a wonderful contribution by our guests and they received a great ovation. 

We then completed a memorable evening with Huw Rees’s arrangement of ‘This is the Moment’ and the haunting and powerful ‘You Are So Beautiful’ culminating with ‘Wind beneath My Wings’. The final item of the evening was Alwyn Humphreys’, now classic, ‘An American Trilogy’ which was accompanied by Rhian and Steve, and was a fitting climax to a tremendous evening. The audience were on their feet in appreciation of a great programme and performance by the choir.

During the concert we presented ties to several members of the choir who have reached another milestone in their life with the choir. Alan Short and Roger Burrell were given 5 year ties, Emyr Price, John Morgan, 10 year ties, and Emil Jones and Des Criddle received their 15 year ties. John Davies has made it to 25 years and our hard working chairman Clive Walters has been in the choir for 30 years. The special award on the evening went to Chris Shaw, who is the only surviving original member of the choir, so was presented with a 50 year tie. Well done to them all. Another special presentation went to our wonderful President, Geoff Wheel, who has now been with the choir for 5 years. Geoff is tremendously proud to be involved with The Gwalia Singers, and we hope he will continue his role with us for many more years.

This was, indeed, a wonderful evening and it certainly doesn’t happen on its own. There are so many people to thank and probably some will be left out. Thanks to the Ladies committee for attending to the front of house and selling programmes. They also handed us a cheque for ‘£5,000 towards the cost of our new uniform. A huge ‘thank you’ to Linda and her fellow committee members. The uniforms were supplied by Aidan Sweeney from Brecon and Aidan deserves a special mention in taking so much care and diligence in ensuring they fitted so well. Thanks to Adrian Crowley, Len Fuge and Glyn Williams for collecting and returning the flowers, which were kindly supplied by Wyevale. Thanks to Tony Brooks for the work in putting together our celebration programme and to all the businesses that provided adverts for us. Thanks to Terry Green for taking the photos and Ken Geen for recording the concert. Thanks to our hard working committee, especially Alan Clewett, secretary and Laurence Sutton, treasurer and also to Walter Jones who took care of the ticketing. Lastly thanks to Nick, Rhian, page turner Carl, and Steve for their hard work and dedication in putting together such an enjoyable programme of music.