Page 14 - EGO Magazine December 2018

Image by/llun gan Christina Haldane

local//lleol

an interview with
Gwawr Edwards

We also featured your cousin Esyllt
on our front cover a few months ago.
You seem to have a rather talented
family?! Yes indeed! My father’s a
By Huw Bates singer, my sister’s an accompanist,
my other cousin Rhys Taylor who is
from Aberystwyth is a phenomenal
clarinetist and saxophonist, and now
my cousin Esyllt has also ventured
into the performing industry... must
For our 50th edition we have a very in some amazing places all over the be something in our blood! Maybe we
special treat for you as we sent Huw world such as China, Hong Kong, should have our own show LOL?!
to meet one of Ceredigion’s finest America, South America and Europe,
talents, Gwawr Edwards. and in Britain’s greatest concert halls Ceredigion’s answer to the
such as the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Osmonds? I like it but going back
So Gwawr, fantastic to meet you. Festival Hall, and Cardiff Millennium to your illustrious and varied
For those of our readers who Centre as well as performing in many career, what would you say have
don’t know you, tell me a bit about operas all over. been your highlights? That is a very
yourself. I grew up on a farm in hard question, because I have had
Bethania, half way between Tregaron Have you always known you so many amazing experiences that I
and Aberaeron where I went to school. wanted to be a singer or was honestly can’t just pick one!
I had a very musical upbringing with there a specific moment you can
my father being a tenor and my sister remember that sealed the deal? As Tell me about a few of them then…
an accompanist. As a child, I was I mentioned before, I have always Well as a singer, performing at the
surrounded by music, listening to my been surrounded by music, especially Royal Albert hall was the first highlight
father practicse singing every night singing, therefore it’s been nurtured in I would say - even though I had a bad
after supper as I lay in bed, and he me from a very young age, therefore chest infection and was on antibiotics,
was away somewhere every weekend it’s never really been a question for so it wasn’t the ‘best’ experience in
singing. me. that sense, but the thrill of walking on
to that stage for the very first time as a
And how did your own musical And to what extent has your father young singer was quite phenomenal!
journey begin? I started off competing Dafydd been an influence upon your I also sang the anthem at the
in Eisteddfodau, before joining my career? He has been a tremendous homecoming of the Wales football
father and sister in concerts, which influence on my career as I grew team after their triumph in the Euros,
gave me great experiences. After up listening to and following him to that was quite an amazing feeling as
leaving Aberaeron school, I gained concerts and performing with him. Not well. Also, just after my daughter Nel
an entrance scholarship to the Royal only in the fact that I grew up singing was born, I started presenting a few
Welsh College of Music and Drama because it was the ‘norm’ in our programs on S4C and Radio Cymru,
in Cardiff to study singing, before house, but I’ve also been influenced which I love doing, and the very first
graduating with a first class honours by his style and way of singing and programme for me to present was the
masters degree from the Guildhall interpreting songs. He never studied history of our family who emigrated
school of music and drama in London. music, or went to college, so except over to America two centuries ago,
As a child I also played the piano from having some voice training, all so to take Nel and my husband
and harp, and did my first American his musicality comes from within, and I Dan over to where they settled in
tour where I sang, played the harp have always admired the passion and Ohio, and create this documentary
and also played piano duets with my meaning he puts into a song, so that was a wonderful experience for me
sister when I was just 11 years old. has naturally rubbed off on me I think. personally and something I’ll never
Since leaving college, I’ve performed forget.
14 15