The event will feature performances in Welsh, English, German and Italian while raising funds for the charity Help Musicians
WELSH musicians are set to debut a St David’s Day concert at Christ Church Radyr, bringing live music to residents while raising funds for the arts.
Postgraduate students from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, an accountant and their mentor will perform songs from Welsh composers as well as German and Italian operas on March 1, 2025 at 7pm.
“I wanted to give my students a spotlight as they don’t get enough opportunity to sing in public,” said Gail Pearson, who has taught at the RWCMD for 21 years.
“Music is for everyone. What’s most important is getting music out into the community to bring people together and give back. It made sense to do it at Christ Church because it’s my home church and it is very musical here,” said Miss Pearson, whose singing career took her across Europe.
Best friends Clara Greening, 23, and Tara Camm, 25, who study at RWCMD, said they were “delighted” to share folk tunes and Welsh music with the community on such a special day.
“Sometimes when you are in college, you forget why you do what you do. You forget that people want to hear music, that people want to listen to you,” said the 25-year-old soprano.
“It’s not always got to be an exam or a competition. It can just be ‘I want to sing and I want people to enjoy’,” she added.
“There’s nothing better than when someone says to you ‘that really hit me emotionally’. You realise how much it means to people to be able to hear and access live music,” agreed Miss Greening.
“It’s creating that sense of hiraeth, there’s no other word for it,” she said.
That is the beauty of music – being able to revisit a piece to bring out different colours and meanings every time you perform”
Tara Camm
The pair will be performing Welsh folk song Bendigedig by Robert Arwyn.
“It’s an absolute banger,” said Miss Camm. “We started singing together in the first year of university and we are going into our sixth year now and we are still singing the same song!
“But that is the beauty of music – being able to revisit a piece to bring out different colours and meanings every time you perform it,” she added.
With tickets priced at £10 at the door, all proceeds from the evening will support UK charity Help Musicians, which provides financial aid, career advice and mental health support to musicians at every stage of their career, from students to retirees.
“At the moment, the arts have hit a massive decline in funding, so any opportunity to perform, learn and grow is just brilliant,” said Miss Greening.
“All of us struggle to find the money, so being able to help a little bit by contributing to this charity means a lot to us because we know what it’s like,” she said.
Founded in 1921 in the memory of celebrated English tenor, Gervase Elwes, Help Musicians supports musicians in need.
Today, the charity provides up to £5,000 to assist with study and living expenses for postgraduate students.
“Music is in a desperate state,” Miss Pearson explained. “Help Musicians are inundated at the moment with requests for help from young musicians and older musicians who need to pay their mortgage.
“I have been a singer for a very long time, but it was never as difficult to become a professional musician when I was starting out.
“It is more difficult now because it appears that music is becoming expendable.”
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The Arts have endured ongoing public funding cuts, particularly in Wales, where the Arts Council of Wales has received a 40% cut in real terms since 2010.
The budget for the Arts for 2025/26 by the Welsh Government will take the Council back to the funding level of 2023-24 before the 10.5% cut announced in 2024, the Arts Council of Wales said.
“This increase in funding will enable us to offer more support and grant opportunities to many arts organisations and artists who create a Wales of vibrant culture and community,” said Chief Executive of Arts Council of Wales, Dafydd Rhys.
But the future of the arts in Wales is, for many, still uncertain.
Help Musicians revealed in their latest Musicians Census that 44% of musicians in the UK cite a lack of sustainable income as a major challenge in their careers.
“I miss what it was like 20 years ago, because in those days we had great fun. We used to do five or six different shows a week on tour, and that was 30 to 35 weeks a year,” said churchwarden Simon Davison.
Mr Davison played full-time in orchestras for 47 years. He retired from the Welsh National Opera Orchestra five years ago.
“Every night would be a different show. We were doing 16, maybe 20 operas a year. Now if they are lucky they are doing one show per week, and three or four operas in a year. It has basically been destroyed by the lack of money,” said the former cellist.
Without music, life is incredibly dull. It takes you out of the mundane, out of the ordinary”
Gail Pearson
Both Mr Davison and Miss Pearson hope this concert will be the first of more to come to celebrate the arts and give student singers more experience in front of a live audience.
Postgraduate student, John Liddington, and Aled Wyn Thomas, an accountant, will also be singing. The singers will be accompanied by pianist Christopher Williams.
“I asked Aled, ‘what is it about singing?’ He said ‘I can’t live without it – it’s what keeps me going during the day,’” said Miss Pearson.
“And that’s just it, without music, life is incredibly dull. We turn to music when we are sad, we turn to music when we are happy. It’s like losing yourself in a book. It takes you out of the mundane, out of the ordinary.
“You can’t live without music, it’s an essential part of humanity, otherwise we are all machines. It connects with our humanity.”
