Forget Glastonbury, it all started in Llangollen (Festivals in general)

Member Name: merv

Product:	Festivals in general
Date:	18/07/02 (169 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very friendly, Lovely venue, Lots to see and listen to

Disadvantages: Shame all festivals aren't run on the same basis

My last opinion was in reply to Jill’s request for everyone to write about their favourite things. I had no hesitation in nominating friendship, the spirit of which is certainly alive and well in a small welsh market town not far away from were I live on the border between England and Wales.

For six memorable days every July, Llangollen, situated on the river Dee amid the rolling hills of North Wales becomes the cultural centre of the world and hosts the International Eisteddfod - the world’s leading festival of music and dance.

For the last fifty years the Eisteddfod has drawn choirs, musicians, folk singers and dancers from every corner of the earth to sing, dance and make music and compete in traditional eisteddfod style. More than 6,000 competitors from over 50 countries entertain an enthusiastic audience of nearly 100,000 from Wales and the rest of the world who each year make a pilgrimage to be part of this unique event.

The festival had its origins shortly after the Second World War, when it was devised to play a small part in bringing together the war torn nations of Europe.

It is a truly fascinating story of how the idea for such a festival was formed in one man’s mind and how in 1947 the town held its breath wondering whether any the European nations would participate. But come they did and by devious routes - some sang their way across France in order to pay for road transport, others hitchhiked, others unknown to the organisers had arranged their own coach transport. The first group to arrive hailed from Portugal and older people in the town still talk of the thrill of seeing a Portuguese coach wending its way down Llangollen’s main street a site which was very unusual in those days and could only be experienced by those fortunate people who happened to be on the street at the time and by the officials who had borne the pressures of doubt and anxiety of the preceding weeks.

The fes
tival really caught the imagination and has survived the tremendous changes in world culture and attitude mainly because it has a unique community spirit with the accent on friendship. Every year, approximately 900 volunteers from all walks of life spend a week of their annual holidays working on the eisteddfod site or hosting over 2,500 of the competitors in their own homes for between 2 and 6 nights, within a fifteen mile radius of Llangollen. Lifelong relationships have been formed, even marriages.

Nowhere else on earth can this many participants from so many countries and regions be found gathered together in such a spirit of friendship. It really is an incredibly spectacular and colourful sight provided by the thousands of competitors in their national costumes. This year there were competitors from China, Belarus, Italy, Kurdistan, Nigeria, Singapore, the Philippines, Israel, Finland, the USA, South Africa, Canada, India, Swaziland, Bosnia, Turkey, Iceland and many other nations all of them competing in a true spirit of friendship.

Originally held in a giant marquee the event is now housed on the same show ground and in a permanent concert hall, the design of which echoes the spirit of the original venue. The aspect is beautiful, bordered by woods and velvet hills and a canal full of boats on one side and the river Dee and spectacular mountains on the other, the festival grounds are in a truly beautiful location and surprisingly in this part of the country, the weather always seems to be as nice and sunny as the competitors dispositions. Even this year – they couldn’t have chosen better.

It’s a very reasonable price to get onto the showground, from £10 a day and only £1.50 in the evening and that gives you access to all the competitions and all the practices and demos going on around the site. The celebrity concerts are of course much more expensive but often attended by members of the Royal Family. It doesnR
17;t seem long ago when Charles and Diana attended, 1985 if I remember correctly, and the Queen was there in 1992.

The format is always the same:

Tuesday is the competitors’ parade from Llangollen to the festival grounds, and an opening ceremony which this year included the Ladysmith Black Mambazo choir.

Wednesday and Thursday are childrens’ choirs and folk dancing and instrumental competitions.

Friday and Saturday are the choir competitions culminating with the prestigious ‘Choir of the World’ competition.

Sunday is the gala evening concert which this year featured an amazing performance by Lesley Garret supported by the Halle Orchestra.

There have been some incredible performances over the years with some wonderful stories to complement them:

"Pigtailed Angels” is how DyIan Thomas described the Children's Choir from Obernkirchen in Germany when they won the Children’s Choirs Competition in 1953. As its 'own choice' item they sang a then unknown German folk song which later became known and popular the world over as ‘The Happy Wanderer’. Fame enabled them to make international tours singing in concerts to raise funds for an orphanage in Germany.

In 1968 the backstage facilities, to put it kindly, were rather crude. Placido Domingo recalled how when, waiting in the wings to perform, he just had to loosen his vocal chords by singing a few ear-splitting, ‘tra Ia las’. But how - in a tent - with the audience a mere hundred feet away? Help was at hand in the form of a perky Eisteddfod volunteer who stood on a chair above his head holding an embroidered handkerchief in her hand whilst peeping at the proceedings onstage through a crack in the canvas. The instant the stage performance ended, deafening applause began. Quickly the lady raised her handkerchief - giving the great man a few brief moments to burst into full
voice - before quickly bringing it down again to cut him off as the applause died.
It’s an experience he claims he will never forget.

Perhaps the most famous story is about Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti. For it was while singing in front of a multitudinous audience, in a giant marquee at the Eisteddfod, far from his homeland, over 40 years ago, that an event took place which was to play an important role in shaping his destiny. It was a significant moment which would lead him eventually to a career in music (he was as at the time studying to be an elementary school teacher).
He had travelled to the festival as a nineteen year old member of the Societa Corale Gioachino Rossini, a male voice choir from his home town of Modena. Luciano was a member because his father was a member of the chorus.

Unexpectedly, certainly from accounts given by Pavarotti junior later, the choir won first prize in the male choral competition. Its members, naturally were delighted as their success. They had travelled a long way from Italy to be part of this unique festival, and they triumphed on the wings of song.

The moment has stayed fresh with Luciano Pavarotti. The visit to Llangollen left an indelible impression on him. He has spoken of the marquee set in rolling green hills. He has recalled the sea of faces watching and listening intently as the choir sang, the thunderous applause which greeted their performance, the adjudication, and the way his spirit soared when the choir was awarded first prize.

A moment in time was etched in the young singer’s mind. And there was, of course, away from the Eisteddfod field, the warmth of the Welsh welcome which so touched the then unknown tenor’s heart that four decades later he would still enquire earnestly about the lady in whose home he had been a guest.

Together with three other members of the Modena choir, Pavarotti had lodged for a week with in the village of Froncysy
llte, just a few miles from Llangollen. Pavarotti spoke repeatedly and genuinely of his desire to return to Llangollen one day.

And in 1995 he kept that promise returning to Llangollen to appear in the Sunday evening Gala concert and what a wonderful concert it was. For Pavarotti - from unknown chorister to top of the bill superstar - and for the International Musical Eisteddfod which played a small but important part in nurturing such a great talent.

Three stories which show what a tremendously friendly festival it is and how it represents such a wonderful spirit in music and dance. Shame the more nodern festivals couldn't be run on the same basis instead of the crass commercialism and business which now seems to predominate.

Thanks for reading, if I can get dooyoo to accept the category, next week I’ll tell you about the fantastic time I had at the Llangollen ‘fringe’ an offshoot of the Eisteddfod that’s starting to rival Edinburgh’s!

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