The men of Welsh valleys community choirs from Treorchy or Tylorstown do not often stand shoulder to shoulder to sing with choral scholars from Cambridge University – but every July, late into the night, that’s now what happens at the Clarence Inn in Brecon.
Set up by a team of volunteers in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic as a way to bring people back together, the Brecon choir festival, now in its fourth year, has built on the Welsh tradition of communal singing to create a unique and ambitious celebration of song and choral music.
This year, group hikes in the surrounding Bannau Brycheiniog national park, talks and professional workshops rounded out an eclectic musical programme ranging from the medieval repertoire of the ethereal Hildegard Singers to the passion of the internationally renowned Pendyrus Male Choir and the high drama of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, performed by the BBC National Chorus of Wales.
For 2025, the festival’s founders decided on a theme celebrating the poet RS Thomas, including a performance of a recently found work – Seven Poems, set to music by the Welsh composer William Mathias – and the premiere of another Thomas poem, Song, set for the BBC chorus by Lucy Walker, one of the UK’s foremost emerging composers.
Georgina, a festivalgoer from Gloucestershire making a return visit after attending in 2023, said: “It’s so nice to see such a vibrant mix in the programme and the performances, there’s a lot of energy. It feels very youthful and fresh.
“I’m not an expert in choral music by any means, but I know what I like when I hear it and I think [the festival] is very special.”
The festival opened on Thursday with a performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah by the Brecon Singers, the local choir set up in 1966 to augment the choristers at the town’s 13th-century cathedral.
“We loved every minute … To see the audience’s reaction to the big moments and hear their applause ring round the cathedral was reward indeed. The Singers were buzzing as they made their way home,” said choir member Ros Reed.
Approximately 350 people attended the festival’s debut in 2022; King Charles and Queen Camilla came the next year, and a Zulu choir the year after that. This July, more than 2,200 people visited, and local schools got involved with singing workshops.
The Brecon festival’s founders, Joshua Games and Punch Maughan, have ambitious plans to raise its national and international profile in the near future.
A key part of the ethos is going beyond a performer-audience dynamic to create a “truly interactive and inclusive experience,” said Games, who also serves as artistic director.
“I think that’s what makes this a much more powerful and resonant experience for festivalgoers. For example, last year we built a Men’s Shed shanty chorus out of local men at risk of loneliness who had never sung before. They went on to perform in front of hundreds on our choir trail, and have since gathered real steam doing regular concert appearances,” he said.
