Cheryl Beer is an author, folk singer and multi-media artist. She is included among the 100+ Menywod Cymraeg/Welsh Women who have made a significant contribution to national life. [1]
Beer has been a folksinger since childhood, appearing as a solo singer or as part of group from the 1990s onwards. [2] Her albums include Just Another Judas (1997), Little Fish: Bare Bone Songs (2001) that was distributed by HMV records, Easy Street (2016). [3] She has worked with several organisations in Wales. She supports the benefits of the arts for health. In 2008 she was the song consultant to Festival of Four, a community festival across Merthyr Tydfil, Blaenau Gwent, Torfaen & Caerphilly led by the Welsh community arts organisation Head4Arts. [4] In 2014 she was the founder of a dementia-friendly online radio programme Sound Memories Radio. [1]
In 2017 her own hearing became impaired but this led her to develop new music and art recording and using the sounds from the sea and within trees and the analyses of their sound spectra. In 2022 she completed Cân y coed/Rainforest symphony, making use of sounds recorded from the mosses, trees and other plants of the Celtic rain forest in Wales. It was premiered at the National Botanic Garden of Wales and subsequently performed at other events such as the annual Unlimited Festival at the Southbank Centre in London in September 2022. [5] [6]
Beer has been included in the list of 100+MenywodCymreig-WelshWomen for her contribution to national life. [1]
Dame Shirley Veronica Bassey is a Welsh singer. Best known for her career longevity, powerful voice and recording the theme songs to three James Bond films, Bassey is widely regarded as one of the most popular vocalists in Britain. In 1999, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II.
Mary Hopkin, credited on some recordings as Mary Visconti from her marriage to Tony Visconti, is a Welsh singer best known for her 1968 UK number 1 single "Those Were the Days". She was one of the first artists to be signed to the Beatles' Apple label.
Cerys Matthews is a Welsh singer, songwriter, author, and broadcaster. She was a founding member of Welsh rock band Catatonia and a leading figure in the "Cool Cymru" movement of the late 1990s.
Richard James is a guitarist, bassist and singer-songwriter originally from Carmarthen, Wales. He was a founding member of the band Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, who split up in 2006. He performs and records as a solo artist, and as part of the bands Pen Pastwn and Locus.
Cheryl Ruth Barker is an Australian operatic soprano who has had an active international career since the late 1980s. She has sung on several complete opera recordings with Chandos Records, including the title roles in Dvořák's Rusalka, Janáček's Káťa Kabanová and Puccini's Madama Butterfly, and Emilia Marty in Janáček's The Makropulos Case. She has also made two solo recordings of opera arias, one with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor David Parry and the other with Orchestra Victoria and conductor Richard Bonynge. On the stage she has had partnerships with the English National Opera (ENO) and Opera Australia.
The music of Cardiff has been dominated mainly by rock music since the early 1990s with later trends developing towards more extreme styles of the genre such as heavy metal and metalcore music. It, along with the nearby music scene in Newport, has brought a number of musicians to perform or begin their careers in South Wales.
The Green Man Festival is an independent music, science and arts festival held annually in mid-August in the Brecon Beacons, Wales. Green Man has evolved into a 25,000 capacity week long event, showcasing predominantly live music. The festival site is divided into 10 areas, hosting literature, film, comedy, science, theatre, wellness and family acts. It is also possible to stay for a week at the festival site, known as the Settlement, and explore the surrounding area.
Gwenno Mererid Saunders is a Welsh musician, known mononymously as Gwenno. She has released three critically acclaimed albums as a solo artist: Welsh Music Prize winner Y Dydd Olaf (2014); Le Kov (2018), her first album in Cornish; and Tresor (2022), which was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize.
Cheryl L. Clarke is an American lesbian poet, essayist, educator and a Black feminist community activist who continues to dedicate her life to the recognition and advancement of Black and Queer people. Her scholarship focuses on African-American women's literature, black lesbian feminism, and the Black Arts Movement in the United States. For over 40 years, Cheryl Clarke worked at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and maintains a teaching affiliation with the Graduate Faculty of the Department of Women and Gender Studies, though retired. In addition, Clarke serves on the board of the Newark Pride Alliance. She currently lives in Hobart, New York, the Book Village of the Catskills, after having spent much of her life in New Jersey. With her life partner, Barbara Balliet, she is co-owner of Bleinheim Hill Books, a new, used, and rare bookstore in Hobart. Actively involved in her community, Clarke along with her sister Breena Clarke, a novelist, organizes the Hobart Festival of Women Writers each September
Tania Karen de Jong is an Australian soprano, social entrepreneur, businesswoman, motivational speaker, and event producer. She is the Founder of Creative Innovation Global, Creative Universe, Creativity Australia, Dimension5, Music Theatre Australia, Pot-Pourri, and The Song Room, and co-founder of Mind Medicine Australia. De Jong was named as one of the "100 Most Influential People in Psychedelics" globally by Psychedelic Invest in 2021.
Kizzy Crawford, known as Kizzy, is a singer songwriter with Bajan heritage who sings in both English and Welsh, using traditional and modern sources. She began writing songs at the age of thirteen.
Cheryl L'Hirondelle is a Canadian multidisciplinary media artist, performer, and award-winning musician. She is of Métis/Cree (non-status/treaty), French, German, and Polish descent. Her work is tied to her cultural heritage. She explores a Cree worldview or nêhiyawin through body, mind, emotions, and spirit; examining what it means to live in contemporary space and time.
Jane Rhiannon Aaron FEA FLSW is a Welsh educator, literary researcher and writer. She was Professor of English at the University of Glamorgan in south Wales, until her retirement in September 2011. She then became an associate member of the Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations at the University of South Wales. Aaron is known for her research and publications on Welsh literature and the writings of Welsh women. She was elected as a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales in 2011.
Welsh Singers Competition, is a biennial singing competition that is held in Cardiff, Wales. The winner of the competition represents Wales in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World in the following year. The competition is open to Welsh classical singers aged between 17 and 31. The final of the competition in 2022 was held at The Dora Stoutzker Hall, Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Cardiff. Previously it has been held at St David's Hall in Cardiff.
Horizons is an arts scheme and music festival launched jointly in 2014 by BBC Cymru Wales and the Arts Council of Wales to develop new independent contemporary music artists. It is curated by BBC presenter Bethan Elfyn.
Archif Menywod Cymru / Women's Archive Wales (AMC/WAW) is a charity which works to identify and preserve resources for the study of women in the history of Wales.
Lorna M. Hughes has been Professor in Digital Humanities at the University of Glasgow since 2015. From 2016 to 2019, she oversaw the redevelopment of the Information Studies subject area The re-launch was marked by an international symposium at the University of Glasgow in 2017.
Charlotte Price White was a leading member of the North Wales Suffragist movement, local councillor and among the first British members of the Women's Institute.
Norena Shopland is a Welsh historian and writer who specialises in (LGBTQ+) research and history. She has been highlighted as a Welsh LGBTQ+ person of significance, and she gives talks, lectures and workshops on Welsh heritage and LGBT+ history. She has organised, curated and consulted on exhibitions and events within the heritage sector in Wales.
Phyllis Kinney is an American-born singer, collector and historian who is a leading authority on Welsh folk music. She studied at the Juilliard School and was a soprano with the Carl Rosa Opera Company during the 1940s. After meeting her husband Meredydd Evans, Kinney immersed herself in the culture of Wales. Through her writing, research and performances, Kinney helped to preserve and promote traditional music of Wales. The archives of Kinney and Evans are now part of the Welsh Music Archive at the National Library of Wales.