ON SONG with ROBERT LLOYD
THERE’S a big concert coming up at The Lyric in Carmarthen at the end of this month.
A Choired Taste will be marking their fifth anniversary with a concert featuring guest stars Only Men Aloud. It is at The Lyric at 7.30pm on Friday, June 28 and tickets are going fast.
Only Men Aloud have been delighting audiences around the world for more than 15 years.
They were formed in 2000, with the hope they could inject some new life into the Welsh Male Choir tradition.
The men have become well known for their strong vocals and their varied and eclectic repertoire.
A typical OMA concert will feature many different styles of music - Welsh hymns and folksongs, opera and musical theatre, all the way to swing and pop.
Nearly 10 years ago, they were named BBC One’s Last Choir Standing and this led to an album deal with Universal Records.
In 2010, they won a Classical Brit Award for Best Album of the Year. They have toured every year since winning the show, all around the world and have worldwide record sales of more than 300,000.
Over the years, the hugely popular group has built up a strong fan base across the country.
They were honoured to be asked to sing at the London 2012 Opening Ceremony at the very moment the Olympic Flame was lit. This performance was broadcast to an estimated global TV audience of 900 million people.
OMA have given many memorable performances, with numerous appearances at outdoor festivals and proms. They have performed twice at The Royal Variety Performance, been seen on numerous television programmes and are familiar faces at sporting events; they sang at the opening ceremony of the Ryder Cup in 2010 and the Ashes in 2015. In 2014, they undertook a highly successful tour of the USA including performances at the famous Ravinia Festival in Chicago and the North American Festival of Wales in Minneapolis.
OMA have now recorded five studio albums and plans are taking place for a sixth.
There’s an evening of Brahms – with a difference – coming up in Llanelli this weekend.
Llanelli District Music and Drama Club are staging Oysters at Llangennech Community Hall (7.30pm) on Friday, June 7.
Oysters is an unusual mixture of a play and concert music.
Anne-Marie Marks, secretary of the music and drama club, describes Oysters as “a dark comedy shining a powerful spotlight on composer Johannes Brahms – at the party celebrating the first performance of his Violin Concerto.”
The piece will be performed by the distinguished actors Neil Salvage, National Theatre, and Nicholas Collett, Royal Shakespeare Company.
It will uniquely integrate professional musicians, whose playing will underpin and occasionally comment on the action.
Act 1 is the play itself. Act 2 is a performance of the music that inspired the play, enabling the audience to experience Brahms’ genius through the fusion of music and drama.
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria. His reputation and status as a composer are such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the ‘Three Bs’ of music.
Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends).
Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. An uncompromising perfectionist, Brahms destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished.
Tickets for Oysters are £10. Students £5. They can be purchased from Barrie Lewis, Market Precinct, or by ringing 01554 772594.
The Llanelli District Music and Drama Club’s final event for this season will feature The Welsh Chamber Orchestra.
They will be performing for the first time in Ffwrnes Theatre, Llanelli, on Tuesday, June 25, 7.30pm. Tickets £12; Students £5 are available from the theatre.
All of the music played by the WCO will be by composers from the ‘west’ who have incorporated themes from the ‘east’ over a period of 350 years, including Handel, Lully, Mozart, Beethoven and Weber.
The music of Wales is of immense importance to the WCO.
It commissions a new work every year to play alongside repertoire works in its concerts.
A newly-commissioned work by Welsh composer Nathan James Dearden, inspired by Japanese folklore will be featured.
This will resonate deeply in Wales, as both countries share a profound respect for their ancient languages and cultures.
The baritone soloist in the work will be Jeremy Huw Williams who is renowned for his affinity with the music of today.
The orchestra’s leader David Juritz (the longest-serving leader of the London Mozart Players between 1991 and 2010) will play Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.5.
The conductor for the concert is Anthony Hose (who has conducted 35 different operas for WNO).
The composer Nathan James Dearden will give a pre-performance talk on the day of the concert.
Llangennech will play host to another big event this weekend.
A Cymanfa Ganu is being held by the union of churches, Eglwysi Undebol Llangennech, at Salem Chapel, Llangennech, on Sunday, June 9.
The guest conductor for this year’s Gymanfa is Trystan Lewis and the organists are Ian Lewis and Allan Fewster.
The afternoon service will be at 2.30 and the evening will be at 6.00.
Burry Port Town Band will stage an evening of Music from the Stage and Shows! at the Memorial Hall on Saturday, July 20, 7pm.
The concert will feature the Senior Band, the ever-growing Junior Band and a very special guest artist, Samuel Wyn-Morris.
If you have news about the choral or concert scene in Llanelli, email robert.lloyd01@walesonline.co.uk or rlloydpr@btinternet.com