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JOHN CYNAN JONES
ASSOCIATE CONDUCTOR 1965-1969
CONDUCTOR 1969-1991
CONDUCTOR EMERITUS 1991-
LIFE MEMBER
John Cynan Jones is very proud of his ancestry, having been born and brought up as a member of a Welsh-speaking family in Treorchy’s neighbouring village of Pentre. He attended Pentre Primary School and Porth County Grammar School for Boys, though his advanced studies in Music were carried out under the direction of Miss Margaret Harries at the Girls’ Grammar School next door! John received piano lessons from Glyn Davies (one of the Rhondda’s finest local teachers) from the age of six, gaining his piano performer’s diploma (A.T.C.L.) at the age of only 16.
John’s organ teacher was Dr Edward Rendall, the Cardiff University Organist, and John became the first student to perform an organ concerto with the Glamorgan Youth Orchestra. John’s father, Ifor Cynan Jones, was a renowned local conductor, holding the post of “Arweinydd y Gân” (Precentor) at Siloh Chapel, where John was one of the organists. John is eternally grateful for his early conducting experience with his father’s “Pentre Lydian Singers.”
In 1951, John was awarded a State Scholarship to study for an honours degree in Music at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. Following his graduation in 1954, this scholarship enabled him to remain there for a further two years to gain the post graduate degree of Master of Music. During this period he was active as an organist and conductor, directing the famous University Madrigal Singers during his post graduate years and winning the first prize in the Open Organ Competition at the National Eisteddfod of Wales. In 1956 John began two years of National Service duty with the Royal Corps of Signals, serving as Garrison Organist at Catterick and, later, at Hilden (B.A.O.R.), where he spent 18 months acting as a cipher operator.
Following his return to civilian life in 1958, John married Mary (his childhood sweetheart and fellow musician), whose father, “Dai Conway”, had been a soloist and long-serving member of the Bass section of Treorchy Male Choir. John was appointed Head of Music at the |
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Cyfarthfa Castle Grammar School in Merthyr Tydfil, where the Head of Music at neighbouring Merthyr “County School” was none other than Glynne Jones, a former famous conductor of the Pendyrus Male Choir, thereby beginning a friendship which lasted until Glynne’s untimely death. During this period John also became Organist & Choirmaster at St Martin’s Church, Roath, Cardiff, whose choir of boys and men’s voices was renowned throughout the Diocese of Llandaff, and who often deputized for the Cathedral Choir during holiday periods.
John returned to the Rhondda Valley following his appointment as Head of Music at Pentre Grammar School in 1965, also serving as Organist & Choirmaster for six years at St David’s Church, Ton Pentre. He was appointed Conductor of the newly formed Treorchy & District Choral Society, a mixed voice choir of over 180 voices, who gave regular performances of oratorios with professional soloists and orchestra in the former “Noddfa” Welsh Baptist Chapel. John was then invited to join the music staff of the Treorchy Male Choir, with the title of “Associate Conductor/Accompanist”, enjoying an immediate rapport with his two mentors, John “Haydn” Davies and Tom Jones. “John Cynan”, as he now became known, made his debut as Associate Conductor at two concerts in London in October 1965, and as Accompanist at Coventry Cathedral in April 1966. In May 1967 he led the Choir to success at the Cardigan Eisteddfod, and followed this with victory at the National Eisteddfod in Bala later that year. During the following year John Cynan was responsible for the Choir’s first recording (entitled “The Pride of Wales”) for EMI Ltd.
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Following the resignation of John “Haydn” through Ill-health in January, 1969, John Cynan relinquished all his other conducting and organ-playing duties in order to fulfil his responsibilities as the new Conductor of the Treorchy Male Choir and also as Head of Music at the newly established Upper Rhondda Comprehensive School in Treorchy.
There was another impending change to the Music Staff of the Choir, for Jennifer Jones, John’s friend and colleague, was to follow Tom Jones as its new accompanist, beginning a partnership between conductor, accompanist and choristers that was acknowledged by critics as unique in Welsh music-making, and which would flourish for a staggering nineteen
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years. John’s philosophy on becoming Conductor was that he was now the guardian of a cherished tradition; there would be no major changes, merely a continuation and enhancement of what had been accomplished by his illustrious predecessor.
The decade of the 1970s was to be a “golden era” in the recording industry, and the opportunities presented by the financial prosperity and expansion of the television medium brought new challenges and much success to our Choir. EMI Ltd (with their eminent producers and technicians) offered unlimited recording possibilities, and commercial television provided the opportunity of working with celebrities such as Ella Fitzgerald, Julie Andrews, Burt Bacharach and Tom Jones, together with their brilliant musical directors and arrangers. John Cynan was able to establish happy working relationships with musicians and producers alike. These “new paths” led to an extension of the Choir repertoire to include music of a “more popular” nature, but the staple repertoire of Welsh folk music, hymns and traditional “War-horses” was never neglected, whilst, at the same time, many fine choruses from the so-called “classical” field were added. Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, was astonished to be informed by our legendary Choir Librarian, Cliff Chislett, that the Choir Library “included over 1,500 items!”
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The decade of the 1980s saw the first of the Choir’s major overseas tours, beginning with two visits to Ontario, Canada, and the first to Australia. John Cynan always maintained a close, but unobtrusive, working relationship with the Management Committee, never more-so than in the matter of the recruitment of new choristers, so that a constant flow of young men into the ranks was assured. Despite the thrills of overseas adventures, John insisted that local and national concerts were to be accorded equal attention, ranging from famous concert venues and cathedral churches to village halls and small chapels. Another significant change of music staff took place with the resignation of Jennifer Jones, but her replacement as accompanist was Marion Williams, the Treorchy-born former student who
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had accompanied the Choir’s winning performance at Bala in 1967. John Cynan ensured that the seamless, almost telepathic communication between conductor and accompanist was retained!
In order to satisfy his yearnings for Anglican Church Music, John had become a part-time visiting member of the Choir of Brecon Cathedral, singing under the direction of that visionary musician and close friend, David Gedge. At Brecon, John was able to relax temporarily from the stress of his ever-increasing responsibilities as Academic Registrar at Treorchy Comprehensive School. He was also enticed back to the organ stool at his spiritual home - St George’s Church, Cwmparc. A serious illness in May 1991 forced John to retire from his academic work and as Conductor of the Choir. He had served a total of 26 years, of which 22 had been as Conductor. John had conducted over 600 public performances, had supervised over 100 broadcasts and recording sessions, and had produced huge quantities of tonic solfa transcriptions and dozens of vocal arrangements for the use of the Choir. As had been the case with John “Haydn”, John “Cynan” was now the recipient of the title of Conductor Emeritus in recognition of his achievements. Now in his later “seventies”, John is in his 26th year as Organist at Cwmparc. In May 2003, in recognition of his long and devoted service to the Church in Wales, John received the “Archbishop of Wales’s Award for Church Music” during a ceremony held, most appropriately, at Brecon Cathedral.
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