A beloved North Wales Easter tradition is on the move six decades after it started \u2013 but the music will play on.<\/p>\n
The Tremeirchion Bach Choir is striking a new note this Good Friday as its landmark annual concert relocates to St Mary\u2019s Church in Denbigh.<\/p>\n
The annual performance, first stated in 1965, will see around 50 singers take on one of Johann Sebastian Bach\u2019s most demanding masterpieces, the St John\u2019s Passion.<\/p>\n
It marks a new chapter for one of the Vale of Clwyd\u2019s longest running traditions which began at Corpus Christi Church in Tremeirchion and moved to St Asaph Cathedral a few years ago.<\/p>\n
The concert on April 3 is being made possible thanks to the generosity of the main sponsor, the arts-loving Pendine Park care organisation through the Pendine Arts and Community Trust (PACT).<\/p>\n
The trust was set up by Pendine Park proprietors, Mario Kreft MBE and his wife, Gill, to support arts and community events.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s performance will be particularly special for them because Pendine is in the midst of its 40th<\/sup> anniversary celebrations.<\/p>\n The annual production was founded in Tremeirchion by local man Alun Vaughan Jones and Mike Lewis, from Rhyl.<\/p>\n Among the choristers performing that day was Alun\u2019s teenage daughter, Mair Dowell, and 61 years later the retired nurse, who now lives in St Asaph, is still going strong as an alto in the choir and its secretary.<\/p>\n Mair, now 78, said: \u201cIt was basically the choir from the church and there was terrible trouble at the first performance on Good Friday 1965 because many of the ladies in the choir insisted on wearing their hats to attend the church and people sitting behind them complained that they couldn\u2019t see the conductor.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has been going every Easter since then apart from the Covid year and it did move to St Asaph Cathedral a few years ago but now it has found a new home at St Mary\u2019s, in Lenten Pool, in Denbigh.<\/p>\n \u201cTrystan Lewis took over as our conductor and he\u2019s been a breath of fresh air and has really kept the choir going. I don\u2019t think the choir would still exist but for him.\u201d<\/p>\n Mair, a member of three other choirs St Asaph, Dyffryn Conwy and Mold, remembers her childhood home in Tremeirchion as always being full of music.<\/p>\n \u201cMy dad was a builder and he had taught himself to read music. He was known as Alun Byth Gartref, Alun Never At Home, because he was always out singing somewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was full of music and my mum, Zillah, was the same. She\u2019d sing in any choir going and I played the organ in the village church from the age of ten.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a wonderful childhood because all these brilliant singers and musicians were always coming to the house.<\/p>\n \u201cMum and dad were both from Tremeirchion and lived there all their lives \u2013 it was only a little village but there was so much going on.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only time we haven\u2019t performed at Easter was when Covid hit and even then I went to the church in Tremeirchion on Good Friday and stood outside.\u201d<\/p>\n The choir and their guest musicians perform each Good Friday, alternating between two of Bach\u2019s great oratorios, the St John\u2019s Passion and St Matthew\u2019s Passion.<\/p>\n Conductor Trystan Lewis, who gained a Masters in Music at Liverpool University, said: \u201cIt is one of the hardest oratorios there is and for a village choir of about 50 singers to perform something so complicated is quite unique.<\/p>\n \u201cThey will be singing with musicians and soloists from Cardiff and Manchester.\u201d<\/p>\n Keeping a choir going these days is difficult, according to Trystan, who works with three other choirs, and he said: \u201cThese are challenging times and we\u2019re very grateful to the Pendine Park care organisation\u00a0 for sponsoring us again.<\/p>\n \u201cWe used to have funding from the Welsh Arts Council and other organisations but that has dried up and it\u2019s getting tougher and tougher but we are struggling on, holding events to raise money.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why we are so grateful to Mario and Gill Kreft who have again stepped in to help us out and ensure that this wonderful event, which has been going for over 60 years, will continue, hopefully for another 60 years, here at St Mary\u2019s Church.\u201d<\/p>\n Mario added: \u201cAt Pendine Park we believe in putting something back to the local communities here in North Wales and we have supported the St Asaph Music Festival and the Royal International Eisteddfod in Llangollen for a number of years.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Good Friday concert by the Tremeirchion Choir is another wonderful event in the region\u2019s artistic and musical calendar and shows how deeply embedded music is in the culture of North Wales and in villages like Tremeirchion.<\/p>\n \u201cSupporting this wonderful Easter tradition fits perfectly with\u00a0 our ethos because music matters just as much to people who live and work in social care and enriching people\u2019s lives, residents and staff alike, is the golden thread that runs through everything we do at Pendine.\u201d<\/p>\n Tickets for the concert are available from Cathedral Frames, St Asaph, or from Mair Dowell on 07768 630055.<\/strong><\/p>\n