In 2021, Tŷ Cerdd, Trac Cymru and FOCUS Wales began a new partnership, creating and delivering an Artist Development Programme, supported by Wales Arts International and Arts Council of Wales. The programme aims to accelerate Wales’ music sector within the folk, traditional, world and language-based music genres, by offering opportunities for artists to receive bespoke mentoring and professional development support in reaching their international potential.
Browse the 2021-22 cohort below.
ALAW
Described by Songlines magazine as a “Welsh supergroup”, ALAW is three leading musicians who bring a wealth of experience to a shared passion - the traditional music of Wales. Nia Lynn's exceptional voice and harmonium dance with the dazzling fiddle of Oli Wilson-Dickson, interwoven with Dylan Fowler's sparkling guitar playing. Whether unearthing rare gems or reimagining a well loved song, they treat their music with a deftness and sensitivity that is thoroughly absorbing. Combined with powerful song writing and original tunes, this makes for a musical experience that will stay with the listener long after the performance ends.
Bragod
Bragod reveals a visceral, medieval sound world: raw, shocking and breathtakingly sprung into life by contemporary artists who explore an archeological past. Since 1999 Bragod has been reuniting classical Welsh poetry with Welsh bardic music from the Robert ap Huw manuscript, their prime musical source. Historical lyres bring forth Wales’ mesmeric early music. Compelling voice production and melody amplify exquisite texts. Movement marks and makes visible the binary patterns played and sung. These patterns have parallels in ancient Greek, African and Asian traditions. No other artists have combined these classical Welsh arts which parallel the commissioning of praise and remembrance in both ancient and far-flung cultures. Bragod’s performances generate a power, way beyond the sum of their parts.
CALAN
CALAN are a multi award-winning Welsh folk band comprising of five virtuoso musicians formed after they met at a folk music course in Sweden. They won international acclaim at the world-renowned Inter-Celtic Festival in Lorient, France, where they would eventually become the first Welsh ensemble to win the coveted International Band Trophy. In April 2019, they were voted Best Band at the inaugural Wales Folk Awards. Since they were formed the band has played to audiences numbering from 40 at a garden fete to 26,000 at Fairport Convention’s Cropredy Festival in Oxfordshire, but perhaps the most visible was their televised performance from a packed Royal Albert Hall alongside Sir Bryn Terfel and Sting.
Catrin Finch & Aoife Ní Bhriain
Dublin native Aoife Ní Bhriain is one of her generation’s most versatile and gifted violinists, a dazzling musician who commands both the classical world and her Irish traditional heritage. From across the Irish Sea on the west coast of Wales, harpist Catrin Finch has also built a formidable classical career and ventured into unchartered musical territory, most notably through her award-winning collaboration with Seckou Keita. Together, Aoife and Catrin form a fearless and intrepid virtuoso duo, anxious to explore a musical world of creative possibility, challenge and discovery, and linked by the cultural, linguistic and political ties of their home countries. Fresh from a debut performance as a duo at the Other Voices Cardigan online festival in March 2021, Aoife and Catrin now embark on a new live performance collaboration together.
Cynefin
'Cynefin' (pr. kuh-neh-vin) is the creative vision of West Wales native Owen Shiers. Fascinated by music and history, it is a bid to give a modern voice to Ceredigion’s rich yet neglected cultural heritage. Starting out from his home village of Capel Dewi in the Clettwr Valley and traveling through the local musical landscape, Owen has unearthed seasoned songs and stories, some never before recorded, and given them new life in the present. Hailed by the Guardian as 'a stunning new talent' and nominated for Welsh Album of the Year 2020, Cynefin gives Owen a platform to ply his intricate arranging skills whilst taking him right back to his roots.
Eve Goodman
Eve Goodman is a songwriter and guitarist from North Wales, who writes and performs in English and Welsh. Nominated for BBC Horizons/Gorwelion project 2019, Eve’s music is rooted in her sense of place. Carried by a clear voice, Eve weaves in the natural world and the beauty surrounding her. Her lyrics reveal a deep connection to what it is to be human in these troubled, inspiring times. From swimming in lakes and finding her voice, to letting her tears be witnessed by the ocean, her songs are bound by themes of human experiences, and our relationship to the wildness within us.
Gitân
Rajesh David is an accomplished and versatile singer and composer, trained in Indian classical music. Born in India into a family of singers, he was an A-grade artist for the All India Radio and Television. His compositions, influenced by Indian classical and folk traditions as well as contemporary music are inspiring, energetic and heart opening. As a singer in Tŷhai he bridges the music and culture of the Celtic world and India: singing in Hindi, Sanskrit, English and Welsh, as well as the musical language of sargams, taranas and bols. Stacey Blythe is a Welsh-speaking composer, singer and multi-instrumentalist, who plays the harp, accordion and piano. She has worked with many opera companies and theatre companies as a musician, music director and composer, and is a Music Director at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Stacey plays with Ffynnon, and tours with Adverse Camber.
HMS Morris
HMS Morris are an art-rock group from Wales. They’ve been touring and recording since 2015, and are supported by the Cardiff-based Bubblewrap Collective. Their 2 full-length albums to date (2016’s ‘Interior Design’ and 2018’s ‘Inspirational Talks’) both earned nominations for the Welsh Music Prize, and were variously described as ‘Innovative, forward thinking pop music’ (Earthly Pleasures), ‘strange and beautiful music’ (Electronic Sound) and a 'multi-dimensional sound that traipses across hitherto unexplored regions of sound' (Clash)’. They’ve taken their music to Toronto, Montreal, Osaka, Tokyo and Kyoto, and are currently working on a piece of theatre/art/dance/music about bees and woodlice.
Jodie Marie
Jodie Marie has a way with a ballad that strokes you gently, then burrows under your skin. The warm, analogue environment in which her songs exist also make them sound that they’ve been here already, for all time. Jodie was born in 1991, into a childhood full of music. With great reviews for her debut album 'Mountain Echo' in 2012, followed by 'Trouble in Mind' in 2015, latest release 'The Answer' comes from a magical place and see's sees Jodie return to music with a full heart, and in fantastic voice.
N'famady Kouyaté
N’famady Kouyaté is a young master musician from Guinea (Conakry), now based in Cardiff, Wales, UK. N’famady’s primary instrument is the balafon – a traditional wooden xylophone, sacred to West African culture and his family heritage of the griot. N’famady plays both as a solo artist and with a full band line up where his arrangements are a fusion of Mandingue African and western European jazz, pop, indie and funk influences provided by an ever-evolving collective of musicians. N’famady is a talented multi-instrumentalist who wowed audiences across the UK and Ireland during the Autumn and Winter in 2019 and 2020 with his modern interpretations of traditional West African Mandingue songs and rhythms supporting Gruff Rhys on the Pang! album tour.
NoGood Boyo
Trad-influenced, full throttle band NoGood Boyo experiment with rock, pop and EDM beats whilst shredding the old traditional Welsh tunes Formed in Cardiff in 2017 the group features five professional musicians, each from different musical backgrounds that include folk, rock, funk and classical. They debuted at the Festival Interceltique de Lorient in 2017, and NoGood Boyo are beginning to take their music, and the party, wherever they go. NoGood Boyo are clear in their message - Go loud, or go home!
Pedair
Pedair draws on the talents of four of Wales' most prominent and award-winning folk artists: Gwenan Gibbard, Gwyneth Glyn, Meinir Gwilym and Siân James. Groundbreaking international artists in their own right, all four thrive on collaboration and the thrill of live performance. Together they bring to life traditional material with new arrangements on harps, guitars, piano and accordion. Their live performances have captured the hearts of audiences with their sweeping harmonies, fresh interpretations of the Welsh folk tradition, and intimacy of songwriting. Bringing together their unique gifts as song-tellers, they source material and inspiration from the poetic, oral and folk traditions of Wales and beyond. This is coupled with their defntness as songwriters, responding to the current state of the world, the resilience of nature, with particular interest in giving voice to the woman. Their first recordings, having emerged during lockdown, gained instant popularity, unexpectedly becoming a source of comfort and hope to many (including themselves!) With their much-anticipated debut album set for release by Sain in 2022, Pedair's creative synergy is only beginning to reach its full potential.
The Gentle Good
The Gentle Good is the moniker of Cardiff-based musician and songwriter Gareth Bonello. Known for his enchanting melodies, intricate guitar style and beautiful acoustic arrangements, Gareth writes timeless music inspired by music from all over the world but rooted in Welsh folk music and contemporary Welsh life. A captivating performer and multi-instrumentalist, Gareth’s ongoing collaboration with the Mavron String Quartet and composer Seb Goldfinch is an enchanting and unforgettable live experience. In recent years, Gareth has become a well-regarded musical collaborator on the international scene, having worked extensively with musicians in China and India. The Gentle Good have released several highly acclaimed records, notably Ruins/Adfeilion, which won the Welsh Music prize in 2017 and Y Bardd Anfarwol (The Immortal Bard) which won the Welsh Language Album of the Year award in 2014. In recent years Gareth has established an ongoing collaboration with artists from the Khasi community in North East India and formed a band, the Khasi-Cymru Collective, which features artists from both cultures. A new album titled Sai-thaiñ ki Sur (the weaving of voices) was released in May 2021 to widespread critical acclaim and was listed third by The Guardian in their best folk albums of 2021.
The Trials of Cato
Formed in Beirut, the band returned to the UK in 2016 and set to performing tirelessly up and down the country, leading to BBC Radio 2’s Mark Radcliffe hailing them as “one of the real discoveries on the folk circuit in recent times.” Their debut album, Hide and Hair, gained attention in national publications, receives repeated national airplay on BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music, and won Best Album at the 2019 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Following a year of wall-to-wall touring across the UK, Europe, and North America in 2019, the band’s march was halted by the live silence of the global pandemic. Now, they emerge from their chrysalis transformed. As ever, ‘The Trials Continue’ - but this time the multi-talented instrumentalist and singer Polly Bolton joins their ranks.
VRï
VRï’s music, combining two fiddles, a cello and powerful Welsh voices, is a unique soundscape that re-interprets Wales’ rich and diverse repertoire of traditional music. Three young men from deepest, darkest chapel-going Wales mine the cultural upheaval of the past 200 years and draw inspiration from the incredible story of a time when Wales’ traditional music and dance was suppressed by Methodist chapels, and, earlier, its language by the Act of Union. Seizing the remaining strands of subsumed tradition and music, VRï’s music blends them into a joyous celebration of Welsh identity, harnessing the energy of the fiddle and the finesse of the violin, the pub session with the beauty of Viennese strings.