Gregynog Festival, Wales’s oldest classical music festival, returns in June with its traditional combination of beautiful summer events in idyllic Mid Wales locations. The season celebrates the vision of the Davies family – Gwendoline and Margaret Davies and their brother David, 1st Baron Davies - for a better world rooted in culture and peace following the First World War.
2019 marks 100 years since Gregynog Festival’s first Artistic Director, Henry Walford Davies, became first Gregynog Professor of Music at Aberystwyth University, 1919-26, and first Director of the National Council of Music for Wales, 1919-41: appointments that were funded by Gwendoline and Margaret Davies. Meirion Wynn Jones' recital includes music by Aberystwyth composers who have played the fine Frederick Rothwell organ at Bethel Chapel over the years, including Walford Davies who gave the inaugural recital in 1924.
A native of Rhewl, Llangollen, Meirion Wynn Jones was educated at Wells Cathedral School, before winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he studied organ and piano. As a student he held organ scholarships at Winchester Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. Having held organist posts at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, the Birmingham Oratory, and Brecon Cathedral, Meirion now pursues a freelance career as a composer, accompanist and teacher. He was for many years a staff accompanist at the International Eisteddfod in Llangollen, and at the National Eisteddfod of Wales.
Meirion's choral and vocal works have been recorded and broadcast on BBC radio and S4C. In 2011 he was awarded the Musician’s Medal (Tlws y Cerddor) for composition at the National Eisteddfod of Wales. Recently-commissioned works include Ffrindiau Bach a Mawr for Côr Heol y March, and the anthem Beloved, let us love for the John S. Davies Singers, marking the fortieth anniversary of their founding. His recital includes the world premiere performance of his Diptych on themes of Walford Davies, the 2019 Gregynog Festival commission.
Other concerts during this year's Festival season include the chamber-folk string trio VRi (22 and 23 June), the Odysseus Piano Trio (28 June), and A Nocte Temporis with the tenor Reinoud Van Mechelen (29 June)