Band director helping Lewis Merthyr take performance to a new level
Craig Roberts, musical director of the Lewis Merthyr Brass Band, continues his articles on the band and this week writes about their performances at a series of major events across Wales and beyond...
LEWIS Merthyr has always been one of Wales’ most successful and prominent bands, performing for royalty and appearing at venues ranging from the Royal Albert Hall, London, to Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen.
In recent years, however, under the current musical director, Craig Roberts, the band have taken performances to new levels.
One of the first performances under Craig was the Wales v’s Italy warm up match for the 2015 Rugby World Cup, where the band played for 52,981 people plus international television audience at the Principality Stadium, Cardiff – the band’s largest audience in their 150 year history.
Since that time the band has returned to the Stadium on numerous occasions, performing to record Pro14 crowds of 62,338 and 68,262 for Judgement Day 2016 & 2018, and also for the Opening Ceremony of the 2016 World Golden Oldies International Rugby Festival, which featured 120 participating teams representing 25 different nations from across the globe.
Lewis Merthyr was also the core of Wales’ first all-female brass band, forming an ensemble together with women from other bands across South Wales to perform, together with an all-female choir, for each of Wales’ 2017 Women’s Rugby Six Nations Championship home matches.
The band then again formed an all-female band for the “Priocessions” Women’s Suffrage Centeniel event, televised live from Cardiff Castle in July 2018.
Lewis Merthyr Band itself has since performed for the Women’s Rugby Six Nations International matches at Cardiff Arms Park in 2019 and 2020.
Other major events the band has performed in include National theatre Wales’ 2016 City of the Unexpected.
Roald Dahl 100 celebrations, which saw the band perform across Cardiff city centre to tens of thousands of people and was again the focus of national television broadcasts.
In April 2018 the band also supported the 11.2m Man Engine events at Cyfarthfa Castle and Ynysangharad Park, Pontypridd.
In June 2018, the band’s symphonic brass ensemble then performed for the launch of the Music Education report for Wales at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, additional contributors to which included Sir Karl Jenkins, Nicola Beneditti CBE, cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and former Royal harpist Claire Jones.
Following performances at Wales’ national classical music festival, the Welsh Proms, in July 2018 and 2019, in October 2019 Lewis Merthyr then travelled to Belgium to perform alongside leading performing groups from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and South Korea at the Internationale Taptoe Belgie (Belgium International Tattoo) where the band featured in three performances at the 5000 seat capacity Versluys Dome, Ostend.
As a result of further international performances in 2020 being postponed due to the covid-19 pandemic the band is now scheduled to pay a visit to both Russia and Colorado, USA in 2021.
Throughout all its performances, large and small, Lewis Merthyr Band remains thoroughly committed to supporting its local community in Rhondda Cynon Taf, through the presentation of concert performances and supporting local events and functions across the County Borough and wider.
The band looks forward to representing Rhondda Cynon Taf and Wales at the highest level throughout all of its performances across the nation and beyond.