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Leader Live
02-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Leader Live
Verity Pulford set to win award at Eisteddfod in Wrexham
Verity Pulford from Eryrys near Ruthin will receive the medal in a special ceremony on the first day of the Eisteddfod, which is being held this year in Wrexham. She submitted two pieces of work for the selectors to consider for the Eisteddfod's extensive art exhibition, Y Lle Celf. Describing her work, she said, 'I made the two pieces this year for Collect at Somerset House. Verity's winning artwork (Image: Eisteddfod)'The three bird skulls are made of layers of glass in different colours, with gold on the beaks. In 2023, I spent a month in Lybster in the north of Scotland on a residency at North Lands Glass, and that's where my interest in shoreline discoveries began. 'I collected many natural objects from the beaches there, including a guillemot skull. By making a mould and then using lost wax casting, I can recreate the shape and textures of the original. 'I started using casting in my work after receiving a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) scholarship and studying the different techniques. 'The second piece, Dark Treasures, combines elements of pâte de verre glass and cast glass pieces, brought together to create imaginary organisms displayed as a collection. 'The colours used are reminiscent of Wunderkammer collections, using black and gold glass. I've also incorporated elements from old-fashioned microscope slides, claws, and crab shells.' Verity added that her work is inspired by the structures and growth patterns in plants and other life forms, 'Non-flowering plants like lichens, algae, ferns, and mosses, and also the magical world of fungi. I play with ideas of magical realism – creating my own forms inspired by or combining different plants and organisms. 'Mutualism, my most recent project funded by the Arts Council of Wales, gave me the opportunity to research marine invertebrates, and many of these are now a source of inspiration. 'I'm also interested in and influenced by the cataloguing of nature – natural history artefacts, early cyanotypes, x-rays, microscopic images, and botanical drawings.' Verity has exhibited at Y Lle Celf twice before – in 2023 with In a World of Its Own, a group of glass mushrooms under a dome, and last year with a collection of work from the Mutualism project. She added, 'It's a great honour to be awarded the Gold Medal for Craft and Design. I've been supported throughout my career by so many wonderful people and organisations, and the Arts Council of Wales has helped me to develop and grow as a maker. 'I'm so grateful for all this support and to those who have encouraged me, supported me, and believed in me. In Wales, I'm part of an exceptional group of makers and artists, and it's an honour to live in this beautiful country surrounded by such a talented and loving community.' Verity said she enjoyed making things at school but never seriously thought it would become a career, 'In my early twenties, I travelled to Barbados and lived with an artist called Aziza. She encouraged me and my friend Sarah to draw and paint, and that was the beginning of the journey that led both of us to become artists. 'I went to art school and discovered glass, specialising in Architectural Glass for my degree. MOST READ: "Beautifully presented" family home on the market in Wrexham Yellow weather warning for Flintshire with Storm Floris set to hit the UK Plans submitted to build new Home Bargains store in Flintshire 'I draw and collect natural elements a lot, and I also draw and paint. These 2D explorations are never really designs – more ways to play with colours and shapes, combining structures and forms, using tone and pattern. 'From there, I work through ideas – mainly in glass – which means I have a lot of discarded pieces because it takes me a while to achieve what I want. 'It takes courage, vision, hard work, and relentless determination to work with glass. So many failures and so many disappointments!' Verity's work will be on display throughout the Eisteddfod in Y Lle Celf. The National Eisteddfod will be held on greenfield land in Is-y-coed near Wrecsam from 2-9 August. For more details, visit
Spectator
30-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Three cheers for the Three Choirs Festival
The Welsh composer William Mathias died in 1992, aged 57. I was a teenager at the time, and the loss felt personal as well as premature. Not that I knew him; and nor was he regarded – in the era of Birtwistle and Tippett – as one of the A-list British composers (John Drummond, the Proms controller of the day, was particularly snobbish about Welsh music). But Mathias was a composer whose music I had played; whose music, indeed, me and my peers actually could play. His Serenade was a youth orchestra staple. It felt good to know that its creator was alive and well and working in Bangor, and when he wrote his Third Symphony I listened to the première in my bedroom, live on Radio Three. Like I say, it felt personal. The 2025 Three Choirs Festival devoted its opening concert to Mathias's 1974 choral symphony This Worlde's Joie, and it was satisfying to hear his voice again. If you haven't had the memo, the Three Choirs is now the premier festival for major British choral works that have slipped through the cracks of history. Stanford's Stabat Mater, Bliss's Morning Heroes, Elgar's King Olaf: I've heard them all in one of those three great cathedrals. This year the Festival is in Hereford, which is specially enjoyable because the performers sit at the west end of the nave, so the evening light streams in behind the chorus. The 2025 programme includes Bliss's Mary of Magdala, Howells's Hymnus Paradisi and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's The Atonement. Intrigued? Watch this space. But Mathias was in pole position. A spray of bells and tuned percussion opens This Worlde's Joie, and the harmonies have the brisk, open sort of freshness you get after a thunderstorm. There's a full chorus, a children's choir (the Hereford choristers, nailing some particularly exposed writing) and a dark, jewelled orchestra (the Philharmonia). The opening gesture returns throughout the work's four movements, which trace the seasons of human life from spring to winter through the medium of medieval English poetry. You'd lose your Arts Council of Wales grant for that, these days. Regardless, Mathias has nothing to prove, and nor does his music. This Worlde's Joie wears its debt to Britten's Spring Symphony without apology, then throws it off just as blithely when Mathias finds he has something very different to say. The Festival went all-in, as it usually does with these rarities, and the soprano soloist Eleanor Dennis gave a mischievous smile as she pealed out a string of mildly suggestive verses by the Tudor poet Robert Greene (the Upstart Crow chap). By then we were in the 'Summer' section. Mathias flooded the orchestra and chorus with hopeful, sensuous harmonies – music that showed the Festival Chorus (amateur singers, like most large choruses in the UK) at its most radiant. In a tradition dating back to the 18th century, it was conducted by the Cathedral's own MD Geraint Bowen, who seemed well on top of things – as he had been before the interval, in Dvorak's Te Deum. Czech music at this tweediest of English festivals? Careful, your preconceptions are showing. Dvorak conducted at the Festival in the 19th century, Saint-Saëns and Kodaly were regulars and Sibelius's deeply weird Luonnotar was a Three Choirs commission. The Te Deum glowed, even if Dvorak's dancing cross-rhythms couldn't really survive the cathedral acoustic. That's the trade-off for performing in a venue like this, and perhaps it's a price worth paying for the sense of musical community that animates the whole Festival. Great beer tent, too. Over in Gloucestershire, another Midlands festival celebrated its 80th anniversary. For a decade or so after the second world war the Cheltenham Music Festival looked like the future of British music, lending its name to a whole sub-genre of bracing, sturdily-wrought symphonies by the likes of Rubbra and Alan Rawsthorne. Then the 1960s happened. According to anecdote, during the première of Malcolm Arnold's Fifth Symphony in 1961 critics started leaving the hall to phone in their slatings while the music was still in progress. Well, bully for them, because Arnold's Fifth – a hallucinatory, primary-coloured song of anguish and euphoria – is now the last 'Cheltenham Symphony' standing, and arguably the finest British symphony since Vaughan Williams. The Festival brought it back to its birthplace in a muscular performance from Gergely Madaras and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, whose horn section sounded particularly ripped in the confined space of the Town Hall. The Cheltenham Festival has fallen on lean times of late; it's difficult to imagine them premièring a symphony again any time soon. But they did commission an anniversary fanfare from the young composer Anna Semple, which (unusually for this sort of commission) had something to say, and said it with imagination and assurance in exactly as many notes as it required.
Leader Live
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Leader Live
Eisteddfod puts Llangollen on the international map
The Clwyd East MP visited the festival to look around the field, watch the competitions and meet some of the volunteers which make it possible each year. She said: 'I've been to the Eisteddfod many times before because people who grow up in North Wales as I did know it as an opportunity to experience a lot of things that they haven't before. It's a place where people from all over the world gather to share in our cultural and musical richness. 'But the Eisteddfod is crucially important not just to this area but the whole of Wales. It's also a truly an international event, something that really puts us on the world map.' (Image: Llangollen Eisteddfod) Ms Gittins added: 'The Eisteddfod not only has huge cultural capital but is also good for travel and tourism to this area. And North East Wales is always ready to rise to the occasion each year. "Our restaurants, cafes and hotels are always ready to welcome people and, especially in Llangollen, they make sure that people are welcomed back again and again. 'People come on a personal pilgrimage each year to see beautiful Llangollen and its Eisteddfod. 'The team work very hard to put the festival on. "There's a huge amount of organisation that goes into it, so fundraising and sustainability is very important and I, along with Ken Skates the Senedd Member for this area, was happy to play my small part in helping to secure funding for the Eisteddfod from the Arts Council of Wales.'
BBC News
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Dance in Wales is elitist and not diverse, says report
Dance in Wales is "elitist, tokenistic and non-diverse" and lacks investment and recognition, a new report has review, led by consultant and researcher Karen Pimbley, highlighted funding gaps and called for better planning, more community hubs and stronger links with schools to improve the contributors said they feared folk dancing and clogging could disappear without more support. In response, the Arts Council of Wales has launched an action plan with £350,000 for development in 2025-26, including appointing dance experts, expanding training, improving access and promoting Welsh language and culture. This report follows similar reviews on folk singing in Wales last week and Ms Pimbley has emphasised the "urgent need for reimagining, rebuilding and reinvesting" in the dance sector. The Arts Council of Wales commissioned the report, which drew on extensive consultation with dance artists, companies, venues, educators and offered 11 recommendations to tackle funding gaps and improve infrastructure, including: Appointment of a dance specialist to Arts Council of WalesProvide funding for bursaries to enable talented individuals to attend Centres for Advanced Training (CAT)Establish an independent panel to oversee national planning and implementationDevelop community hubs to enable collaborationEmbed the Welsh language and culture into dance practice The report also highlighted that members of the Welsh Folk Dance Society expressed concern that traditional dance had often been overlooked and feared it was seen as "old fashioned" rather than a "vibrant representation of Welsh culture".It did also highlight traditional dance as having "untapped potential" as a tool for learning Welsh and said Project Eight's two-year plan to promote and celebrate traditional dance was an example of good practice. Chief Executive of the Arts Council of Wales Dafydd Rhys praised the dance community in Wales for its "remarkable resilience in the face of deep structural challenges".Since the review, Mr Rhys said the organisation had two dance specialists, Emily Bamkole and Julia Sangani, and a "comprehensive action plan" to give dance "the support it deserves".The Welsh government said it increased Arts Council of Wales funding by 9.2% this year and welcomed its response to the report.
South Wales Argus
25-06-2025
- Business
- South Wales Argus
Strong support needed for traditional music in Wales
The strategic review, commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales and led by Angharad Wynne, highlights the need for renewed investment for the traditional music sector in Wales. Ms Wynne said: "I'm grateful to all of those who generously shared their thoughts, ideas and passion for traditional music with us. "The review highlighted that the structures in Wales, which once supported the handing down of traditional music skills and tunes, are no longer viable without support and some urgent interventions. "While much of the review discussions focussed on enlivening grassroots participation, we have understood the traditional music sector in Wales as an ecosystem – each part impacting upon the others. "The Arts Council of Wales's response to the review findings has been heartening, and the very intelligent ongoing discussions about how best to support this sector flourish and grow are very exciting." The report, the most comprehensive of its kind in Wales, was managed by Tŷ Cerdd in partnership with Trac Cymru and gathered input from more than 280 contributors. It describes a sector full of creativity and cultural relevance but lacking the support and investment needed to thrive. Among the key concerns raised are the need for stronger grassroots provision, especially for young people and intergenerational groups. The report also calls for expanded opportunities for informal participation at the community level, better integration of traditional music in schools and higher education, clearer development pathways for musicians, and targeted efforts to build audiences. Dafydd Rhys, chief executive of the Arts Council of Wales, said: "There's huge passion for traditional music in Wales, and the consultation showed a clear need for more coherence, visibility and support. "In response, we're committing £300,000 for Gwerin this year – a 270 per cent increase on previous dedicated funding pre-Investment Review. "The majority of which will go into the sector to support delivering activity." The review forms part of the Arts Council's broader efforts under its 2023 Investment Review to strengthen the cultural sector across Wales. It also highlights successful models from Scotland, Ireland, and Belgium that could inform future development in Wales.
