Mae Hiraeth Yn Y Mor

It is a collection of Welsh songs taken from the early recordings of Kenneth Bowen, and was presented to him as a surprise during a farewell concert with the London Welsh Chorale on July 26th.

When I studied singing with Kenneth Bowen at the Royal Academy of Music in the early ‘90s, he’d already been retired as a singer for a few years. So it’s a real pleasure to hear these recordings, made in his prime and way before I started singing myself as a chorister in Bangor. My first album featured Dilys Elwyn-Edwards’ ‘Caneuon y tri aderyn’ – so it’s fantastic to hear Ken singing them here. Dilys wrote these lovely songs for him back in 1961, and especially in ‘Mae Hiraeth yn y Môr’, I think you can hear a song perfectly suited to the soaring warmth of his voice. Aled Jones