THE HILLS ARE ALIVE...
Star soprano in the Royal Albert Hall one week, helping with lambing the next, Gwawr Edwards reveals how growing up in rural Wales led to a career in opera
Fergus Collins meets star soprano and farmer Gwawr Edwards, as at home on the stage as she is in the lambing shed.
If you find yourself walking in the sheep-flecked hills of Ceredigion, you might be lucky enough to catch threads of beautiful Welsh hymns or snatches of Italian arias on the wind. It is the voice of Gwawr Edwards singing to the ewes in the lambing shed or practising for her latest performance in the open spaces of her family farm.
“When you sing outside, there’s no limits,” she tells me. “My sister lives in a house near the farm a few hundred yards down the road and she’ll text me to say: ‘the whole area has just heard you practising’. When you sing outside, there are no limits. Being in the fields is a brilliant way to practise vocal technique.” Now a renowned classical singer with an international reputation, Gwawr grew up a farmer’s daughter – but surrounded by music. “Being Welsh, I grew up in the Eistedfodd tradition and I competed in them from a very early age,” she says.
“I was very shy as a child and I didn’t love performing. My father was a tenor and I began joining him on stage for little duets to get experience. My sister was the accompanist. But I always
had to lend a hand on the farm – mucking out the cows, driving tractors and carrying bales.
“And even now I head home at weekends and holidays to help, especially during lambing, in my working gear with my hair up and no make-up. People are surprised; they see me as a singer in these glamorous outfits and assume I’ve never done anything on the farm. Then I tell them about what you do when a lamb dies – you skin it and put it on another lamb so that the mother accepts it – they’re horrified, but that’s normal for me.”
After success in Eisteddfodds, Gwawr got a scholarship to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff and from there her career as a classical singer blossomed. She’s sung at the Royal Albert Hall, Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff, Glyndebourne and even for Prince Charles at Highgrove. She’s also travelled the world to perform in concerts, from North America to the Far East, and has worked with greats, such as Bryn Terfel and Rhydian Roberts, as well as making many television and radio appearances.
Through all of this, Gwawr explains how the family farm and the countryside still play an important role: “When life is stressful, there’s nothing I like more than to go for a walk on the hill behind the house; it’s therapeutic, good for the soul. And being in the countryside and fresh air helps the lungs and breathing. Fresh mountain air really helps the singing.”
A COUNTRY UPBRINGING
I ask her how she finds the transition between her rural homeland and her now-home in the city of Cardiff. “I love living in Cardiff but seeing the way my daughters and her friends are now is very different to my life growing up. Country life always seems a bit simpler and city children seem to be growing up too fast. When I was growing up, my friends and I never worried about image – we were children for longer. Nowadays, children of nine or 10 seem to be going on 20.
“I think a country education can give perspective. A lot of children I know don’t understand where their milk or meat is coming from. I hear lots of uneducated views on farming – that it’s cruel. Many people have a confused view of what farming is, without having the facts.”
Despite being settled in Cardiff, Gwawr harbours an ambition to return to farming and the family land. “I can do my job from anywhere and I’ve always wanted to move back. There’s
“Fresh mountain air really helps with the lungs and singing”
a house on the farm for me to move back to, though it needs a lot of renovation. Moving is a matter of timing for my two children and husband but I would like to help out in some way in the family business.” Currently, her nephew runs the farm with her parents overseeing.
So which pieces of music best evoke her Welsh homeland? She mentions three, one of which I know: Nant y Mynydd translates as Mountain Stream, and was the name my wife and I gave to our smallholding in the Brecon Beacons. She also mentions Aros mae’r Mynyddoedd Mawr and Cân yr Arad Goch, both of which I hastily look up online. “But my favourite is Tydi a Roddaist – I get goosebumps just saying its name. And I love to sing The Holy City by Stephen Adams.”
I have always admired the Welsh passion for song and I asked Gwawr why the Welsh had cornered the market for communal singing.
“The Eistedfodd tradition is strong and reflects how song has always been a social aspect of Welsh life. You go to chapel and Eistedfodd – the main social events – and you’d always sing. Even now in concerts in Wales, we go to the pub after and there is food and always a sing-song. Four-part harmony and blast out the hymns: for me, that’s the best kind of night out.”
HOW MUSIC CHANGES LIVES
Gwawr tells me just how important music is, beyond the sheer joy of creating something beautiful. She explains how performing in public helps develop confidence, social skills and how to conduct oneself. “A lot of professions require you to stand up and talk or hold a meeting. If you’re used to performing it’s a huge help, as most people are super-shy.” She laments the drop in funding for music education, not just in Welsh schools but across Britain.
This year, Gwawr is spending a bit more time at home “to be a mum”; her second child was born just before Christmas 2018. But she’s also pursuing a new venture with two other female singers – a trio called Athena – as well as writing books “with a strong countryside theme” for children. And then there’s her dream ambition to work as a Countryfile presenter; surely there’s room for a singing farmer on the show?
On top of that, this spring she’ll be back at the family farm at weekends and over Easter to help with lambing, and no doubt wooing the newborns with Italian love songs. So if you’re walking in those Ceredigion hills, you might just hear Puccini’s O Mio Babbino Caro soaring over the fields.
WHERE TO HEAR GWAWR
You can hear Gwawr Edwards on BBC Radio Cymru, Sundays, 6am. Her trio Athena will be performing at the Urdd Eisteddfod in Cardiff in May. urdd.cymru/en/