Welsh mezzo soprano and harpist Rachel Ann Morgan has been organising St David's Day Concerts in the Netherlands, where she lives, for the last 18 years and this year it will be held in Amsterdam on 1st March. But there is also this earlier concert in The Hague on Sunday 22nd February where Rachel Ann will be joined by harpists Ernestine Stoop and Edward Witsenburg together with vocalists Carol Williams (soprano), Geraint Roberts (tenor) and Hans Brons (bass) for a another popular feast of Welsh music including music both for solo harp and 4 voices and harp by John Thomas.

Click here to view the programme (pdf)

Welsh mezzo soprano and harpist Rachel Ann Morgan has been organising St David's Day Concerts in the Netherlands, where she lives, for the last 17 years and this year it was held in Amsterdam on 2nd March. Rachel Ann was joined by harpist Edward Witsenburg and vocalists Geraint Roberts (tenor), Emma Brown (mezzo soprano), and Hans Brons (bass) for a feast of Welsh music including music both for solo harp and 4 voices and harp by John Thomas.

Click here to view the programme (pdf)

The Music of John Thomas
Pencerdd Gwalia 1826 -1913

Catrin Finch (Harp)
Gary Griffiths (Baritone)
Hannah Stone (Harp)
Katherine Thomas (Triple Harp)
Winners of the John Thomas Harp Competition
Côr Tabernacl Bridgend - Conductor Dr. Kevin Adams

Tickets - £10 / Children under 16 £5

Tickets available on line from Creighton's Collection

Organised by Coleg Telyn Cymru (Harp College of Wales)

Dates:
23/03/2013 South Wales prelim - Merthyr Tydfil
03/04/2013 North Wales prelim - Caernarfon
13/04/2013 Final round in Bridgend, South Wales

For full details please go to www.gwylpencerddgwalia.co.uk

The concert was given at St James's Hall, London, by John Thomas and his teacher, John Balsir Chatterton (1803-1871) on 'St David's Eve' 1863. St David is the patron saint of Wales, and St David's Day is March 1st.

Cambria and The Minstrel's Adieu are published by Adlais Music Publishers

In honour of St Valentine’s Day, two Royal Harpists present an evening of Romantic Harp Music including a tribute to John Thomas. From the concert programme notes for this event:-

"It was for his contribution to Welsh music, that, at the Chester eisteddfod of 1860, he had been invested with the bardic title Pencerdd Gwalia (Chief Musician of Wales), which gave him so much pleasure, and of which he was so proud.

In 1871, following the death of his teacher, Chatterton, John Thomas became Harpist to Queen Victoria, and so it is particularly appropriate that tonight’s Valentine’s day concert should be given by two modern-day Royal harpists, past and present - Catrin Finch and Hannah Stone.

Their concert includes three of John Thomas’s duets for two harps. His arrangement of themes from Bizet’s Carmen (1885) and that of Schubert’s Serenade (1900) are particularly suited to a concert of romantic music for Valentine’s Day, while the first half of the programme ends with the ultimate ‘classic’ by John Thomas, his Cambria, known throughout the harp-playing world. It is especially appropriate that it should be played in tonight’s concert, as, in a fortnight’s time, on 28 February 2013, we shall be celebrating 150 years since its first performance. This took place at St James’s Hall, London, on ‘St David’s Eve’ 28th February 1863, the performers on that occasion being the then present and future Royal harpists, J B Chatterton and John Thomas himself. "

©Ann Griffiths, 2013