8 July 2008
Pen y Bont Fawr Male Voice Choir
English and Welsh Music for a Summer Evening
Bodfach Hall Gardens
After last year's deluge for the Garden concert, many anxious eyes were cast skywards during the day, but in the event, it as a fine, dry, evening. All the better to hear the performance…
The Pen y Bont Fawr Male Voice Choir (with accompanist, compère and soloists) offered a well constructed programme, in English and Welsh. It included Welsh songs, operatic choruses, and even a Negro Spiritual, all illuminated and enhanced by that inimitable sound, In the intervening moments, jests and stories from the compère added yet another dimension to the evening, and kept us very well entertained.
In the second half, Mrs Olwen Jones dedicated her solo "When you come home" to her grand-daughter who is serving as a paramedic in Helmand Province. Mr Tudor Vaughan gave us some penillion, and the choir's performance included some hymns, a Maori song to the Moon, and a rousing Amen.
Oh - and an encore. The audience enjoyed it so much I strongly suspect the choir would not have been permitted to leave without giving an encore!
Rachel Wright
Committee Member