MARION WILLIAMS

ACCOMPANIST 1989-1998
HONORARY LADY MEMBERS

On becoming the Choir's third Accompanist in January 1989, Marion Williams came home in more ways than one. A native of Treorchy, she first came into contact with the Choir during the late 1960s while a student. She accompanied the Choir under the baton of John Cynan Jones at the Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales in Bala in 1967 where they were awarded the First Prize in the Chief Competition for Male Choirs, and she received the accolade of a special commendation from the adjudicators for her brilliant performance at the piano. In 1970 she became the Choir's Assistant Accompanist, a position she held for a year before leaving the Rhondda to take up a teaching post in Kent. Nineteen years later and she returned to the Treorchy family. Over the next nine years she accompanied the Choir in 215 concerts, including three overseas tours to the United States of America, numerous EMI recordings, radio and television broadcasts and hundreds of rehearsals. She also gave an unforgettable performance of the piano solo from Beethoven's Choral Fantastia with the Choir and orchestra at St David's Hall where a very young Katherine Jenkins was playing the violin at the time.

Marion accompanied the Choir during some of its most traumatic years and without her dependability and total dedication to the organisation, it is unlikely the Choir would have continued to flourish. It was Marion who provided the rock of foundation for the Choir during the upheaval of John Cynan Jones's untimely resignation in 1991 and again when John Jenkins resigned in 1997. Despite the uncertainties and difficulties, there remained one constant, and that was Marion's sheer professionalism and support at all times. Marion Williams received Honorary Lady Membership of the Treorchy Male Choir in 2008.