You, the people of Llanelli are amazingly talented and others of you do not realise how talented you are.
I had a fantastic experience on the evening of the 28th September this year and I wish to share this with our readers. John and I went to the St Elli Church to see a fantastic performance by local talented people. What they performed was Joseph Hayden’s Creation. It was very difficult to perform by professionals but these were amateur singers and musicians conducted and directed by Piet Zorn.
Haydn’s Creation follows the Creation of the world following the Book of Genesis. He was greatly influenced by Handel when he visited him in England.
In 1995 I moved to France and lived there for 14 years. Every summer the local town set up a series of concerts where professional musicians and performers came from all over the world to show off their talents in the world of classical music. The local beautiful monastery and various local churches were where these fantastic concerts took place. I would get the programme and choose what I wanted to see and go along to the Concert office and buy them.
Last night I re-lived that experience in Llanelli except these people were amateurs. It was an extraordinary evening. The St. Elli Church is very beautiful built in the 15th Century. It was Grade II listed on the 30th November 1964. In my mind as I watched the performance in that beautiful building, all my memories came flooding back of that beautiful French monastery and those fantastic performances. Little did I know that when I moved to Llanelli in 2016 that I would re-live those experiences in this beautiful church.
Before I carry on with the story, I would like to tell you about coming back from London on the last train to Llanelli. A load of rugby supporters poured onto the train in Swansea. They were not badly behaved, just noisy. Suddenly the whole carriage went silent and this beautiful voice sang Nessun Dorma. It was gorgeous. I’ve always commented that this could only happen in Wales.
This evening in the church we had an ensemble of musicians:
French Horn – David Wheeler, Trumpet – Cellan Morgan, Timpani – Gareth Hamlin,
Viola – Imogen Holborn, Clarinet – Louise Baylis, Flute– Rachel Thomas,
Cello – James Mcbeth, Violins – Mihai Stoican and Aden Yip and the amazing pianist Sian Davies. Aden Yip plays a violin loaned to him from industrialist Jonathan Sparey and a gold mounted Bow made by John Stagg which was partially funded by a Royal Philharmonic Society Grant. All these musicians have an extraordinary musical background and for us in the audience the whole experience was amazing.
The Soloists were: Baritone – Kieran Rayner, Tenor – Osian Wyn Bowen, Morgan Summers – Soprano, Jade Fouracre-Reynolds – Alto
Haydn’s Creation follows the Creation of the world following the Book of Genesis. He was greatly influenced by Handel when he visited him in England .
And last but certainly not least was the wonderful Chamber Choir , made up of wonderful local people to whom we owe so much. They work so hard to perform for us and they are all amateurs and perform like professionals.
Cross Hands Cinema
Let us look at some other amateurs who care about Llanelli. In this case these are all volunteers trying to keep this wonderful Art Deco cinema alive and we are succeeding but we need more volunteers and we want the people of Cross Hands and the rest of Llanelli to support us and come and see films here, some of which will be different films, not the mainstream, and also we do live shows, again supported by talented local people.
This half-term on Monday 28th October, this wonderful cinema is showing for free for children the film Hocus – Pocus for Halloween. Please come along to see the film and support your local cinema, the only independent cinema in Llanelli.
John Street Project
This is a project to make a street a thing of beauty. We are hoping, with planning permission, of course, with our wonderful architect, Phil Lewis, to make a Creative Quarter in John Street, to have a wonderful arch crossing the entrance to the street.
We will have colourful planters. We are hoping that Dyfed Steel will donate the metal and the students of the Art Department of Coleg Sir Gar and their very talented lecturer, Lisa Evans, will build it.
However, we do need help with some funding to gain the planning permission. The Town Council has already donated some money, and two citizens of Llanelli have donated enough to keep us going. We already have the Art House, the John Street Gallery, the Llanelli School of Music and Drama in John Street and another Gallery in Stepney Street. We have a Craft Shop, Just into Crafts, run by the lovely Deborah Griffiths and a pottery shop, Ceramics for you in Stepney Street.
We will be signposting all the artists around the whole of Llanelli, so that people will know of their existence. There are so many artists all around Llanelli and it is important to showcase their work. We hope that other councils will support us as we need £800 to finish the project. All the artists are very excited about this as it will also attract visitors into the town centre and make sure that these visitors can visit the artists themselves. The Rural Council has been unable to support this exciting project, I suspect, through lack of funds, as it is hard for councils nowadays. Our dream is to turn the empty post office in John Street into a town museum to be part of our Creative Quarter.
Creativity is an important part of our lives. Let us all support it for the good and pride of Llanelli.
Llanelli is a great place and so many local people are so proud of what we all achieve. If you are willing to donate a little bit, we would be very grateful.
Well done, the people of Llanelli.
