Fame Hilite: World-renowned bass-baritone; knighted in 2017 for services to music; sang the coronation Kyrie for King Charles III in Welsh.
Birth info: Born 9 November 1965 in Pant Glas, Caernarfonshire (Gwynedd), Wales.
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Beyond the opera house, Terfel founded the Faenol Festival near Snowdonia in 2000 and is a vice president of the historic Dunvant Male Choir in Swansea. In 2023 he made history as the first performer to sing Welsh at a British coronation.
Career Highlights:
Career Highlight: Won the Lieder Prize at Cardiff Singer of the World, 1989
Career Highlight: Debuted at the Royal Opera House and Metropolitan Opera in the early 1990s
Career Highlight: Knighted for services to music, 2017
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Connection: Born and raised in rural Gwynedd; Welsh was his first language, and he remains a leading patron of Welsh music and culture.
Location String: Pant Glas, Caernarfon, Gwynedd, Wales
Connection Place Map: 53.0068,-4.2814
Sir Bryn Terfel Jones was born on 9 November 1965 in Pant Glas, a small village in Caernarfonshire (now Gwynedd), the son of a farmer. Welsh was his first language, and he grew up singing in chapel and competing at local eisteddfodau, taught traditional Welsh songs by a family friend before he had any formal training. He is now widely regarded as one of the finest bass-baritones of his generation, a singer whose career has taken him from the hills above Caernarfon to the world's greatest opera houses.
Terfel studied at...
Fame Hilite: Section Principal with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and a former member of the RPS Young Artist Award-winning Heath Quartet.
Birth info: Born in 1981 in Rhiwbina, Cardiff, Wales.
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Cerys is a member of the Sinfonia of London and appears regularly as Guest Principal with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. She continues to pass on her craft as a teacher at both the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in her home city of Cardiff and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.
Career Highlights:
Career Highlight: Soloist debut with BBC National Chamber Orchestra of Wales, 2003
Career Highlight: RPS Young Artist Award with the Heath Quartet
Career Highlight: BBC Music Magazine Album of the Year 2020 with Sinfonia of London (Korngold)
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Connection: Born and raised in Rhiwbina, Cardiff, and trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama before her professional career.
Cerys Jones is a violinist from Rhiwbina, Cardiff, who began playing at the age of eight and went on to become one of Wales's most accomplished orchestral and chamber musicians. In 1996 she won a full scholarship to the Junior Department of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, studying under Barry Haskey, before leading the Cardiff County and Vale of Glamorgan Youth Orchestra and appearing as a soloist with the BBC National Chamber Orchestra of Wales in 2003, performing Bach's Concerto for Violin in E major.
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Fame Hilite: Royal harpist to the Prince of Wales (later George IV), and author of the landmark Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards.
Death info: Died 18 April 1824 in London, in straitened circumstances; buried at St Marylebone cemetery.
Birth info: Born and christened 29 March 1752 at Henblas, Llandderfel, Merionethshire, Wales.
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Beyond his own harp playing, Jones was one of the earliest systematic collectors of Welsh traditional music, transcribing melodies he heard sung and played during his return visits to north Wales. His scholarship on ancient Welsh musical instruments and literature made him a key figure in the Celtic Revival of the late eighteenth century.
Career Highlights:
Career Highlight: Appointed harpist to the Prince of Wales around 1790
Career Highlight: Published Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards, Vol. 1, in 1784
Career Highlight: Adopted the name Bardd y Brenin on George IV's accession in 1820
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Connection: Born and raised at Llandderfel, Merionethshire; confirmed Welsh by birth.
Edward Jones, who took the bardic name Bardd y Brenin ('The King's Bard'), was born at Henblas in the parish of Llandderfel, Merionethshire, and christened on 29 March 1752, the fourth of nine children. His father was a skilled musician and harp-maker who taught several of his children to play, and Edward was steered towards a musical career from an early age, developing a lifelong fascination with Welsh poetry and native customs alongside his harp playing.
Around 1775 Jones travelled to London under the patronage of...
