Tomorrow’s weather forecast (Saturday, 14th September) is looking sunny for Cardiff where Ocean Arts will play host to Fiddle Festival of Wales. The festival features free fiddle workshops and sessions, the Welsh Celtic Fiddle Competition, and an Evening Concert featuring multiple Welsh Folk Award winners and BBC Radio 2 Folk Award nominees Vrï, supported by Cardiff’s own Isembard’s Wheel, and Swansea Ceilidh Band Coppercaillie. Here are Vrï performing at the welsh Fire and Sea Festival:
Founded by David Hughes in 2004 the festival began life as the Welsh Celtic Fiddle Workshop Weekend & Competition, taking place each year at Stackpole, Pembrokeshire, until 2010. John Carpenter, a regular attendee of the festival from the very beginning, revived the festival as a one-off event in 2012 at Mynyddbach Chapel near Swansea, which is the resting place of Daniel James (“Gwyrosydd”), the composer of the Welsh hymn tune Calon Lân.
John was known locally (and to some, internationally) as “The Violin Man” as a result of his violin repairs, and the moniker he carried forward to his regular radio show on Radio Tircoed, Before John sadly passed away, he passed on the Welsh Celtic Fiddle Competition trophy and the metaphorical baton for the Fiddle Festival to former champion Jamie Nemeth, who won the Open competition in 2007. Jamie also attended the Fiddle Festival since the very first event in 2004, and plays fiddle with several bands, including his family band The Occasional Domestics, and as a regular guest with Cardiff’s Bel Blue and Isembard’s Wheel, as well as the popular traditional Irish band Henry Marten’s Ghost. Jamie, like John, is passionate about the violin/fiddle, its history, its versatility and how it blends with other instruments in many different styles. The Welsh Celtic Fiddle Competition winners and competitors have included Christine Cooper (Fernhill), Patrick Rimes (Calan, Vrï, NoGood Boyo), and Angharad Jenkins (Calan, DnA).
For more information and tickets visit: www.fiddlefestivalofwales.com