Guest Musicians
Throughout the years the Treorchy Male Choir’s music staff has often included deputies and assistants, while on occasions they have relied on guest musicians to assist.
Also guest organists have been a regular feature for many of the Choir’s recordings and concert engagements, including Anthony Lewis, D.R. Rees, Idris Lewis, Bruce Denham, Charles Clements, David Bell, Hazel Davies, Huw Tregelles Williams, Canon Graham Holcombe and more recently David Geoffrey Thomas.
However at concert engagements the appointed music staff of the time has changed very little considering the Choir has performed 1,800 concerts since 1946.
During John Haydn Davies and Tom Jones’s long period in charge there was very little call for guest musicians, although naturally there were occasions when the Choir participated in massed choral events when specific conductors and accompanists were appointed. It was under such circumstances that the Choir performed under the baton of Sir Adrian Boult, Mansel Thomas, Frank Wright and Arwel Hughes during the 1950s and 1960s.
With the exception of one concert in Hope Chapel, Bridgend in 1962 when he was too ill to play the piano, Tom Jones was replaced temporarily by none other than Mary Carpenter Edwards, the long-standing accompanist of the Royal Welsh Male Choir.
There was of course the period when the maestro became ill prior to the National Eisteddfod of Wales in Swansea. Throughout the summer and autumn of 1964 a member of the Choir’s Second Tenor section, Cas Powell, was called upon to conduct the Treorchy singers in rehearsal and for a particular concert in Abercarn. BBC musician Alwyn Jones also led them through a radio broadcast.
Once John Haydn recovered sufficiently to return to the Choir he decided the time had come to appoint a third member of the Music Staff and so John Cynan Jones became the new Associate Conductor. His first concert was at Acton Town Hall in October 1965 and he conducted the Choir several times over the next three years, more notably leading them to victory at the Cardigan Semi National Eisteddfod and the National Eisteddfod, Bala in 1967. On this occasion a deputy accompanist was sought owing to the ill health of Tom Jones. For a short period it was a young student name Marion Williams who fulfilled this role and was commended by the adjudicators for her masterly performance.
John Cynan became the new Conductor of the Choir in January 1969. Within two years Tom Jones passed away and it was Jennifer Jones who replaced him. Together Jennifer and John Cynan led the Choir for seventeen years in perfect partnership.
Throughout this era there were of course the occasional engagements when other musicians were called for to fulfil the role if either the conductor or accompanist couldn’t attend. Some of the guest accompanists during this period included John Samuel, the former Conductor of the Royal Welsh Male Choir and later Pendyrus Male Choir and accompanist to tenor Stuart Burrows.
The Choir’s close friend and arranger of music Bryan Davies of Ferndale has also guest accompanied the Choir from the mid 1970s through to the present day in almost fifty concerts. His contribution to the Treorchy Male Choir has been immense and in 2007 he was presented with Honorary Membership.
In 1975 a local pianist and former pupils of John Cynan’s, named Neil Johnson was appointed the Choir’s Assistant Accompanist and also performed in the ranks of the Choir. It was a role he fulfilled for the next two years.
During periods of ill health, John Haydn Davies, the Conductor Emeritus replaced John Cynan on the podium and continued to play an active role in this regard until his final concert in Colston Hall, Bridgend in 1977. During this period Jennifer Jones also raised the baton at Treorchy, becoming the first woman to conduct the Choir at a concert with Harry Secombe in Rhondda Sports Centre, Ystrad. Her deputy, Neil Johnson accompanied her that evening.