Theatr Mwldan hosts Pendyrus Choir tonight, Saturday, 10 September.
The male voice choir was formed in 1924 in Tylorstown in the Rhondda Fach. Today it has over 80 members and they have performed around the world - to great acclaim. They have toured in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Canada, and numerous European countries.
Ieuan Jones is the musical director and Gavin Parry is the accompanist.
Pendyrus is a name consisting of two parts, ‘pen’, meaning a peak or ridge, and ‘dyrus’, meaning rough terrain not easily cultivated - the name of a farm that once existed above the choir’s home valley before the onset of industrialisation.
Originally from Anglesey, Ieuan moved to Cardiff to study music at the Cardiff University, where he received an Honours Degree.
As an accompanist, Ieuan has travelled Great Britain extensively, and played in many prestigious venues, including the Royal Albert Hall, Birmingham Symphony Hall, and 10 Downing Street.
He has also toured Ireland, France, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Spain, Italy, Poland, Austria, Canada, and New York where he performed at Carnegie Hall.
Ieuan is also a busy accompanist for many soloists and choirs, including Côr Heol-y-March, and the Morriston Orpheus Choir.
During his studies, he became an organ scholar at Dewi Sant church and is now musical director and choirmaster there. He is also the musical director of the Cardiff Arms Park Male Choir (Côr Meibion Parc yr Arfau Caerdyd) and the assistant musical director of the Morriston Orpheus Choir.
He has enjoyed considerable success at numerous choir competitions, including Children’s Choir of the World at Llangollen, and Choir of Wales on S4C’s Côr Cymru.
He is also the musical director of the British and Irish Lions Male Voice Choir and toured New Zealand with them in 2017.
His other musical interests include playing the ukulele, and entertaining audiences with his talent as a yodeller.
Gavin was educated at Cardiff High School, read physics at Bristol University where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree.
He had studied piano while at school, becoming a Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music, and resumed his studies at the Royal Academy on leaving university
He subsequently returned to Cardiff where he worked for the Welsh Office and the Welsh Assembly Government dealing with pharmacy and prescribing policy in the National Health Service until his retirement in 2010.
He is a freelance professional musician, accompanying choirs and solo artistes throughout Britain, and in Russia, the United States, Hungary, Australia, and Canada.
He was official accompanist at the Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales in Newport in 1988. Gavin was appointed Accompanist to Pendyrus in September 1973 and was awarded Life Membership of the choir in 1994.
Pendyrus Male Choir was formed in 1924 in Tylorstown in the Rhondda Fach, and has had an unbroken history ever since.
There had been various male choirs in the village since the 1870s when it had come into existence around the mineshafts sunk by the industrialist Alfred Tylor, but they lapsed during the First World War.
Though the 1920s were years overshadowed by mass unemployment in the coalfield, undaunted a handful of young men from the locality decided to contact friends and former workmates with a view to forming a male choir.
They approached a local baker and amateur musician called Arthur Duggan who accepted their invitation to conduct, and Pendyrus was formally inaugurated in a hut belonging to the South Wales Miners’ Federation on 24 May 1924.
Subsequent musical directors have been the legendary Glynne Jones (1962-2000), John Samuel (2001-2009), Stewart Roberts (2009-2019) and currently Ieuan, all of whom have since 1973 benefited from the immaculate services of Gavin at the piano.
The choir’s last tour was in August 2017 to Krackow-Poland.
In addition to foregrounding local school choirs, its annual concert has featured such stars as, Rebecca Evans, Katherine Jenkins, Shân Cothi, John Owen Jones, Paul Potts, Lesley Garrett, Gwawr Edwards, Rhydian Roberts, Rhys Meirion, and Aled Wyn Davies.
Darcey George and Heather Jones will join the choir in Cardigan.