Ladies’ choir marks 40 years of singing and achievements
AFORMER music teacher who taught international opera singer Sion Goronwy as a child has been reunited on stage with the singing star in a celebratory concert marking 40 years of the Welsh ladies’ choir she founded.
Manon Easter Lewis and her 40-strong choir, Côr Merched Edeyrnion, performed with a star-studded line-up at Theatr Derek Williams at Ysgol Godre’r Berwyn in Bala on Saturday.
They toasted four decades of singing achievements – including no fewer than 11 wins in the ladies’ choral competition at the National Eisteddfod of Wales.
Among the special guests at the concert were Welsh bass Sion Goronwy, from Rhyd Uchaf, near Bala, Tri Tenor Cymru, Sorela and Linda Griffiths.
Manon, who worked as a special education needs and music teacher for 30 years at Ysgol y Berwyn, previously taught Sion, who made his Royal Opera debut in 2016/17, when he was at school and said it was an absolute privilege to be sharing the stage in honour of the achievements.
The choir also commissioned Robat Arwyn, to compose a 40th birthday song, with words written by acclaimed poet and scriptwriter Mererid Hopwood, which was sung choir’s at the concert.
The choir was formed by Manon in 1979 and mainly drew members from local villages and the towns of Bala and Corwen.
The 79-year-old grandmother of two, who lives in Corwen, previously conducted a successful children’s choir at the school which also competed in competitions.
“Every three years, when they got to Year 9, they’d leave me and move on to the senior school and I’d have to start all over again,” she said.
“I decided I wanted to do something more permanent but didn’t really know how to go about it.
“I decided to call people I knew in every village around Bala and Corwen and ask them if they would mind contacting people who they knew could sing and ask whether they wanted to come along to the old Corwen Pavilion.
“I hoped I’d get 20 turn up and ended up having 40!”
As well as success at the National Eisteddfod, in 1992 the choir won the Silver Cup at the prestigious Verona Music Festival in Italy.
One of the choir’s highlights came in 2015 when they were invited to the Welsh chapel in Liverpool to sing at a concert celebrating the 150 years anniversary of the voyage of the clipper, The Mimosa, which took settlers to establish the Welsh colony in Patagonia in 1865.
Côr Merched Edeyrnion still has a loyal membership of around 40 singers aged from 50 up to 90 – 10 of whom are original members.
It has not competed for the past 10 years, instead preferring to host annual St David’s Day and Christmas concerts.