Faryl Smith set to shine at Llangollen Festival's new Opening Gala
Young singing sensation Faryl Smith is set to star at this year’s Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod. Thirteen-year-old Faryl, who shot to fame following her success on ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent, is no stranger to the North Wales festival having first competed there at the age of 10, winning first prize for her vocal solo in the 10-15 age group. Faryl: ‘I’m really looking forward to going back to Llangollen, I have great memories of competing at the Eisteddfod, it was my first taste of performing on an international stage and gave me the confidence to follow my dream’.
Faryl joins an impressive list of ex-Llangollen competitors who have gone on to achieve musical stardom. Placido Domingo acknowledges that his first professional experience in the UK was at the 1968 International Eisteddfod, and in 1955 the late Luciano Pavarotti was a member of the winning male voice choir from his home town of Modena, returning as the world’s most famous tenor for a concert performance in 1995. Faryl added ‘I’m so excited, I’m following in the footsteps of my heroes Pavarotti, Domingo and Katherine Jenkins. To be singing at the opening concert at Llangollen is a dream come true!’
The Opening Gala, to take place on Monday 6th July, will support Llangollen’s ‘Competitor Bursary Appeal Fund’ which will ‘offer financial support to competitor groups from all over the world’ explains Mervyn Cousins, Executive Director of Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod. ‘The Friends of the Eisteddfod have already played a leading role in providing support for competitors. We often forget how hard it is for the competitors who travel to Llangollen from all over the world. We hope the Fund will help international performers continue to visit the festival and become stars of the future’.
Among the evening’s performers will also be Mark Evans, originally of Llanrhaeadr near Denbigh, who recently reached the final three in BBC One’s Eurovision talent show ‘Your Country Needs You’. Mark, who has many theatre credits to his name including High School Musical and the West End’s Wicked said ‘To be asked to sing at an international festival that happens to be so close to home is such an honour and music to my ears’.
The concert will showcase rising stars of Llangollen and celebrate local talent with performances from the award-winning Fron Male Voice Choir, who formed specifically to compete in the first International Eisteddfod of 1947 and have since gone from strength to strength reaching album-success with their ‘Voices of the Valley’. Also performing will be reigning Llangollen Male Choir champions Côr Godre’r Aran, male-voice choir Cantorion Colin Jones and young tenor, Alexei Kalvecs. A donation from the Gala’s proceeds will also go to Wrexham’s Nightingale House Hospice, in association with Côr Godre’r Aran.
The new Monday night concert entitled ‘Opening Gala’ comes as yet another addition to this year’s Eisteddfod schedule, already extended with an extra day of activities on the Sunday culminating in a spectacular concert to close the festival. Sunday night’s ‘Licensed to Thrill’ concert will see an evening of James Bond music performed by the Welsh National Opera Orchestra, conducted by Carl Davis and starring Bond girl Honor Blackman. What a cocktail...prepare to be shaken AND stirred!
For more information or to book tickets visit www.international-eisteddfod.co.uk or call 01978 862001
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