Meredydd Evans
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Meredydd Evans (born Llanegryn, Wales 1919) is a collector, editor, historian and notable performer of folk music of Wales written in the Welsh language. His award-winning recordings of his own unaccompanied vocal performances and his published editions in collaboration with his American-born wife Phyllis Kinney have helped to preserve Welsh musical legacy and promote it world-wide.
Born in Llanegryn in Merionethshire, Evans was brought up in Tanygrisiau.[1] He attributes his first exposure to Welsh folk songs to his mother who sang to him when he was a child. [2] His interest in Welsh music developed at the University College of North Wales, Bangor, under the influence of Mrs. Enid Parry. In 1954 he recorded an important selection of songs for Folkways Records in New York while a Ph.D. Candidate in philosophy at Princeton University. After his return to Wales, he and his wife edited three collections of Welsh songs described as "definitive reference-works for this genre of national song." [3]
Whilst a student at Bangor he was a frequent performer, notably with Cledwyn Jones and Robin Williams on Noson Lawen broadcasts for the BBC. (He was the cwac cwac of Triawd y Buarth.) Between 1963 and 1973 he returned to popular entertainment as Head of Light Entertainment for BBC Wales, and a producer of numerous popular television programmes including Lloffa, Fo a Fe, Ryan a Ronnie and Hob y Deri Dando.
A senior figure in Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, he is an advocate of non-violent revolutionary means to promote the interests of Welsh speakers. He appeared before the High Court in Carmarthen in 1980 after the Pencarreg television transmitter was taken off the air in the course of the campaign for a Welsh-language television channel.
In April, 2007, the University of Wales published a festschrift volume for Evans and Kinney, "a fully bilingual collection of critical essays on various aspects of Welsh song and traditional music by Wales’ leading experts and musicologists" [1] to celebrate their contribution "not only to Welsh traditional music but to the very culture and language of Wales." [4]
Contents |
[edit] Publications
- Hume Gwasg Gee, Denbigh. 1984.
- Canu'r Cymru Volumes 1&2. Welsh Folk Songs. Welsh Folk-Song Society.
[edit] Recordings
- Merêd - Caneuon Gwerin 2005 (double album, Sain SCD2414)
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ Meic Stephens (ed.), 'Cydymaith i Lenyddiaeth Cymru' (Caerdydd, 1997).
- ^ Meredydd Evans, Welsh Folk-Songs: Sung by Meredydd Evans (New York:Folkways Records)
- ^ Sain (Recordiau) Cyf. (Caernarfon, Wales)
- ^ Wyn Thomas in a promotional notice for Harper, Sally & Wyn Thomas. Bearers of Song: Essays in Honour of Phyllis Kinney and Meredydd Evans (Bangor: University of Wales, 2007)
