Oldford Estate Traditional Welsh Music Workshops

Arts Connection held 4 days of Welsh traditional music workshops in February, in partnership with the Oldford Estate Tennant’s Association. The project ran in two schools - Maesydre and Oldford Infant School – as well as open access weekend workshops, taster sessions, and an evening session open to all at the Royal Oak in Welshpool. The aim of the project was to promote and develop Welsh Language Cultural events to both school children and the non-Welsh speaking community. We were fortunate to have well known and professional musicians working on this project which was well received by those attending.

Rhiain Bebb - Triple harp and vocal
Gary Northeast - Accordion
Jem Hammond - Flute / whistles
Cass Meurig - Fiddle / Crwth
Danny Kilbride - Guitar
Huw Williams - Step dance / harp
Janet Evans - Step dance

Lake Vyrnwy Photography Project

Cordelia Weedon worked with an adult group over the autumn term ‘03 to produce some splendid photographs taken around the Vyrnwy Park. The groups also learned about photographic processes and how to take a good photograph.
Over a period of eight weeks in the Summer term Cordelia ran photography workshops at Llanwddyn Youth Club with funding from Arts Connection and Severn Trent.

During the workshops the children had the opportunity to take photos with a pinhole camera, and photograph each other during a studio portrait session. They photographed youth club activities and some children took home disposable cameras to do an Identity project. The results of the children’s work was on display for an evening at the community centre in Llanwddyn on July 15th, for parents and members of Llanwddyn community to see. The exhibition will be on display at Llanfyllin Community Centre later on in the year.

PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BY
RHYS
PENNANT SCHOOL

Welsh Language Events

Here’s a brief rundown of last year’s events.

Welsh Creative writing workshops were held in Llanfyllin during the year in the company of Crowned Bard Cyril Jones and Crowned Bard Mererid Hopwood (Meifod 2003).

Chris Meredith, the well-known Brecon author, held a bilingual poetry workshop.

Steve Eaves held an evening of Welsh rock, blues and poetry.

Crowned Bard Twm Morus and Iwan Llwyd held an evening of Welsh poetry.

Simultaneous Translation was available for all events.

A series of English Creative Writing Sessions also took place, led by Alex North

Exhibitions

Our main exhibition this year was our ten year event.

Most member’s who exhibited left their work up on the top floor of the Youth & community Centre for 2 months after the exhibition. The top floor space has quite a large throughput of visitors attending adult education classes, and meetings and is eminently suitable for exhibiting artist’s work. Work from photographic projects was exhibited in Llanwyddyn and is now on display here at the Youth & Community Centre.

Arts Connection took part in the Mid Wales Community Arts Network exhibition and presentation day at CARAD in Rhaeadr for Alan Pugh, Minister for Culture & Sport.

We will shortly be working with Llanfyllin High School pupils to enable them to organise, publicise, set up and run an exhibition of their course work.


life drawing

A number of tutored sessions with model have taken place this year and proven to be very popular. We have been asked to run tutored and untutored sessions this year and hopefully this series of days will be self financing now due to the number of people wanting to take part.

ten-year event

Arts Connection was 10 years old this year, and to celebrate this milestone, the company held an event on Sunday, the 9th of May, at the Youth and Community Centre, Llanfyllin. Various artist members of the organisation exhibited pieces of work, ranging from willow weaving through to letter carved stone. The artwork was displayed on the top floor, and everyone agreed that the work was of a very high standard.

The ground floor was taken up by an exhibition of Arts Connection’s work, with photographs and artwork representing all of the company’s projects. Traditional Welsh music was provided by ‘Hogiau’r Gororau’, which added to the relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Members ‘Vagaboni Puppets’ of Llanbrynmair brought along a number of their ‘little friends’, who moved amongst the visitors, and entertained the children all day with their magic and charm.

Ivor Martindale of ‘Design Synergy’ was commissioned to produce large display panels with images and text to show the company’s work, aims and objectives. These are now permanently sited outside our office. Many positive comments were made about the panels and the images used. Lembit Öpik MP officially opened the well-attended exhibition.