Eisteddfod competition finals results announced

* Celebrations on the Pavilion stage as the winners of Choir of the World are announced.

Super Saturday results of competitions at the Eisteddfod have just been announced.

Festival officials say the finals saw one of the most closely fought competitions at the Eisteddfod for many years.  

Here are the judges winners:

Choir of the World:

Winners: Kammerchoir Manila – Philippines

Runners Up:

Cantilon Chamber Choir – Canada

Delaware Choral Scholars – USA

Le Voci – England

International Conductor’s Prize: Heather Johnson of Cantilon Chamber Choir – Canada

Lucille Armstrong Dance Champions 2023:

Winners: Labschool Kebayoran Senior Highschool – Indonesia

Runners Up:

Loughgiel Folk Dancers – Northern Ireland

Soul Oasis Cultural Ambassadors – Trinidad & Tobago

Pendine International Voice of the Future:

Winner: Zihua Zhang – China

Runner-Up: Owain Rowlands - Wales

Charlotte Kelso - Australia 

The Eisteddfod says: "A huge congratulations to everyone who has competed and performed over the last week, we've had an absolute ball, and your joy in sharing your music and dance has really captured the town and far beyond.

"It's not over yet - we have one more day. Join us on Sunday, for a final day with all inclusive tickets from only £10, which includes a public operatic masterclass with our head vocal judge, Martin Fitzpatrick and four exceptional singers from 10:00. This is followed by our Voice of Musical Theatre 1st round, the first ever Dance Off, community bands, activities and performances including a talk and book signing with former BBC Breakfast News host, Louise Minchin, AND an all new concert from 18:30 with the finals of Voice of Musical Theatre, and performances from our top dance groups, Mother Touch Zimbabwe, Dance Champion finalists Soul Oasis Trinidad & Tobago and Loughgiel Northern Ireland, and our winners Labschool from Indonesia." 

* Tickets and listings on the Eisteddfod website: https://ow.ly/JKhJ50P708c

* llanblogger pictured Choir of the World winners Kammerchoir of Manila singing at St Collen's Church on Friday lunchtime. They had been due to give a recital there the previous day but had to re-arrange it when their plane from the Philippines was cancelled.

Saturday's Eisteddfod highlights - before the storm broke

This morning and afternoon - before the storm broke - llanblogger was out and about recording the day's Eisteddfod highlights.

* Soul Oasis song and dance group from Trinidad and Tobago light up the Globe stage.

* Monks from the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in Tibet dance is Centenary Square this morning.

* Risca Male Voice from South Wales compete in the Equal Voice competition at the Pavilion.

* James Lambert Singers from Rhos perform on the Ampitheatre stage.

* Bostock Singers from Vale Royal in Cheshire on the Globe stage.

* A lunchtime recital by Saint Agnes choir from Cornwall at St Collen's.

* Manchester Community Choir fills the Globe stage this afternoon.

Thunderstorm brings Eisteddfod choir competition unexpectedly large audience

 

* Competitors with umbrellas dash for cover in the Pavilion as rain sweeps the maes.

A choir competition at this afternoon’s Eisteddfod ended up with a much larger audience than it might usually expect.

The reason was a flash thunderstorm over the valley which brought torrential rain to the maes which was packed with hundreds of competitors, entertainers, visitors and volunteers enjoying what had been a warm, sunny afternoon.

That was until around 1.30pm when the threatened storm broke overhead, triggering loud claps of thunder, brilliant flashes of lightning and driving rain.

Immediately, scores of them began dashing for the shelter of the Pavilion, which was hosting the Open Choirs Competition involving a dozen top choral groups from across the world.

* The Southern Spirit Singers keep singing as the storm breaks outside.

A momentary halt was called to the proceedings by compere Iwan Griffiths to allow hordes of soggy refugees from the downpour into the auditorium and be shepherded to seats by stewards.

London-based Southern Spirit Singers had just finished their first number, appropriately entitled O Praise the Lord, as the almost Biblical scene developed outside the “big tent”.

And, rather than compete with the thunder the choir conductor Andy King halted briefly before starting their second song, Morning Star.

When they did finish their performance was rewarded with huge applause and cheers from the unexpectedly enormous audience which had gathered in front of them.

* The Pavilion's auditorium fills up with some unexpected spectators.

By the time they had finished their final number, Canticum Novum, the storm had temporarily eased and people began to file out of the Pavilion.

It was a masterful operation by all involved from the Eisteddfod team and the choir.

Jazz royalty calls in to provide red-hot Eisteddfod concert

For one night only, the International Pavilion stage was transformed into an intimate New Orleans jazz club – minus the smoke – when the Guy Barker Big Band came to call.

The formidable assembly of top-drawer talent headlined the Eisteddfod’s Friday evening concert ably assisted by a star line-up of guest performers who really are modern day jazz royalty.

Initially formed as a septet in 2001 for the Mercury Award-nominated album of legendary trumpeter Barker, the band went on to become residents for Cheltenham Jazz Festival, opening the London Jazz Festival, performing at the BBC Proms, hosting the annual Royal Albert Hall’s Big Band Christmas, and much more besides.

Deploying punchy brass and New Orleans soul, they led us on a journey through the history of jazz song, featuring both classics and surprise new arrangements.

Setting the tone of lots of hot music for a hot night the band opened with old standard I Can’t Stop Loving You with Baker setting the direction on trumpet.

Guest singers Vanessa Haynes and Clare Teal soon jumped aboard to show how things were going to get even better, with former Van Morrison vocalist Haynes’s contribution including a honeyed I’m Going Lock My Heart and Throw Away the Key.

Teal laid on some similar masterpieces in the same vein and also slotted into her role as the evening’s entertaining MC.

Next to stop by was the rare talent of Giacomo Smith, a native New Yorker now based in the UK who has rapidly become recognised as one of the most distinct and versatile performers on the London jazz scene.

If you’ve ever watched Strictly Come Dancing on the TV and marvelled at the versatility of sheer musical ability of the man who provides it you’ll know all about Tommy Blaize but to see him in the flesh in Llangollen was a real thrill.

An early sample of his smooth style came with a laid-back Careless Love.

After Teal came back with a scat-laden version of Let’s Fall in Love the band stepped things up even higher with Barker’s own crazy yet masterful arrangement of  Tom Waits’s Temptation, a marvellous concoction of brassy blaring and guitar twanging fun.

We were back in New Orleans in the sixties as Haynes gave us a soul-fuelled Mean Man, first made popular by Betsy Harris in the day.

We went even further back in the New Orleans jazz annals as Smith led a number called High Society – not the Frank Sinatra one – on his fantastic clarinet to close the first half of the show.

After the break Smith returned to lead the band, assisted by a blaring solo trumpet, as it headed on through a superb version of Rocking in Rhythm.

Teal did an intricately jazzed-up version of Singing in the Rain followed by a highlight of the whole night – Smith providing the haunting clarinet-based pace for the old Midnight in Paris which was totally evocative of the hot jazz club days of the City of Lights.

There was much more from the assembled singing talent, including Blaize with Can’t Stay Away from the Door and Woman from Haynes, by which point came the first signs of dancing from somewhere in front of the audience.  

Things came almost to a head with a driving, sizzling Tiger Rag, with Smith and his clarinet in the driving seat, and finally rounding off with all three singers lending a skilful hand on Jump Jive.

The only thing to do after all that was to head out in search of a glass of bourbon or two.          

llanblogger's Friday Eisteddfod picture round-up

Here's llanblogger's Friday round-up of the day from the Eisteddfod

* Better late then never: the Kammerchor Manila Choir (above and below) at last kept their date to sing at St Collen's. They were due to give a recital there on Thursday but had to cancel after their plane from the Philippines was cancelled.   

* Pianist Evi Wang competes in the Kronospan International Musician of the Future preliminary round at the Pavilion.

* A Kurdish folk dancing group performs in Centenary Square.

* Back on the maes the Saint Agnes choir from Cornwall sings on the Globe stage.

* Penn West Clarion Concert choir performs at Centenary Square.

* Delaware Choral Scholars from the USA during their lunchtime recital at St Collen's Church. See the video on Youtube at: https://youtu.be/C22kSTF3msQ

* The Cazadors playing the Globe stage this evening.

Eisteddfod recreates Dylan Thomas broadcast of 70 years ago

* Actor Celyn Jones reads Dylan Thomas's reflections on the 1953 Llangollen Eisteddfod.

* The audience around the Dome stage. 

* Dylan Thomas makes a broadcast for the BBC.

A famous radio broadcast by legendary Welsh poet Dylan Thomas about Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod has been recreated to mark its 70^th anniversary.

The reading this afternoon (Friday) by actor, writer and director Celyn Jones formed the centrepiece of a mini-programme of events to celebrate the literary magician’s 15-minute masterpiece on the BBC’s Home Service about his visit to Llangollen in 1953.

The vivid verbal images conjured from the Dome stage form an enchanting and unforgettable picture of the unique event and were delivered in his deep, resonant voice.

Back in 1953 year the late Queen Elizabeth II also attended the Eisteddfod shortly after her Coronation.

The festival had been established six years earlier under the dark shadow cast by the Second World War as a way of promoting peace through musical harmony and dance.

According to the Eisteddfod’s executive producer Camilla King, they were particularly keen to celebrate the anniversary of Thomas’s memorable broadcast.

She said: “Although sadly Dylan Thomas died in New York a few months after his visit to Llangollen, his priceless legacy will live on because he is rightly regarded as one of the literary greats.

“We felt it was particularly appropriate to remember not only his brilliant broadcast but also the wider canon of his work which turned him into a superstar poet.”

The commemorative activities included a presentation by Prof Chris Adams, vice chair of the Eisteddfod and a member of its Archive Committee, who revealed the poet was paid the princely sum of 20 guineas for his endeavours.

Prof Adams said that Swansea-born Thomas had “generated verbal images of the early Eisteddfod whose power resonates to this day”.

It was all the more remarkable, he said, because locals recall he had spent a lot of his time in Llangollen in the pub, with the Wynnstay Hotel (now The Three Eagles) being a favourite watering hole.

That was borne out by the late Aneirin Talfan Davies, the BBC producer who was despatched to Llangollen to keep an eye on Thomas, who accompanied by his wife, Aeronwy and their daughter, Caitlin.

Talfan Davies, who was himself a talented poet, later told how Thomas had spent the week “wandering aimlessly through the streets of Llangollen, with the odd half hour spent in the eisteddfod tent and many hours in the  bars of the town’s pubs.”

He also described the poet’s way of working which involved “writing notes on cigarette packets, and the panic on the way back to Cardiff when Thomas feared he had lost the material”.

Thankfully, the notes came to light in the nick of time and the finished, finessed piece has been described as a classic example of his genius with words.

Eisteddfod action continues right into Sunday

* The Loughgiel folk dancers from Northern Ireland will perform on Sunday.

Sunday's Eisteddfod programme is packed with events. 

In the Pavilion you can watch the first round of Voice of Musical Theatre from 11.45-2pm as 12 competitors take to the stage in the hope of being crowned the overall winner in our closing concert. 

From 2.15pm there's the first ever Dance Off competition and the audience choose the winners.

Groups from across the globe duke it out to be chosen as the most entertaining and inventive dancers. Audience participation is encouraged.

 

From 6.30pm there's Stars of Tomorrow, presented by Sian Thomas, which sees four top-class vocalists battle it out to be crowned The Voice of Musical Theatre 2023. 

Previous finalists and winners of this prestigious competition have gone on to big things, and were even seen singing alongside Alfie Boe in Tuesday's evening concert. 

For the first time, S4C will be broadcasting highlights from the competition on the same evening.

 

The concert’s second half features some of the Eisteddfod's finest international performers in a series of highlight performances from acts including Mother Touch Dance Zimbabwe, Shebre Ghana, Soul Oasis Trinidad & Tobago, Loughgiel Northern Ireland as well as some to be announced guest stars.

 

On the Eisteddfod Maes there's a wide variety of entertainment taking place from 10:30 onwards including: Lilly Boughey – Chester Male Voice Choir – The Montagues – Vocal Highs – Xplore Science Activities – Circus Skills with Jester Jack – Poet Natasha Borton – Hip & Harmony – Klaus & the If-tones – Sound Bathing Session – Lego Building – Diddi Dance - Our new Community Band Competitions (brass, silver, concert).

Also during the day former BBC Breakfast star Louise Minchin will be doing a talk and book signing.

Eisteddfod Maes / Field Tickets: 

Cost – £12 adult / £10 concessions / £5 children (age 5yrs & over, under 5s go free)

Family tickets – £25 family (2 adults & 3 children age 5yrs & over) / £15 solo family (1 adult & 3 children age 5yrs & over)
Also includes free entry to Stars of Tomorrow closing concert from 6.30-8.30pm.