An appeal has been launched to find singers for a new choir that will be helping to celebrate the life and work of a royal composer at the festival he founded. 
The William Mathias CBE 80th Anniversary Concert will be a highlight of the North Wales International Music Festival at St Asaph Cathedral in September.
Professor Mathias, who died in 1992, was born in Carmarthenshire and was a child prodigy who started playing the piano at three and was composing music by the age of five.
The concert on Tuesday, September 23, will cover his life, the composers who inspired him and his own compositions including ‘Let the people praise Thee, O God’ which he wrote for the royal wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales in July 1981.
Fellow royal composer Prof Paul Mealor, a pupil of Prof Mathias, who was commissioned to write Ubi Caritas at Amor by the Duke of Cambridge marriage to Catherine Middleton in 2011, will conduct some of his own works.
The new choir will perform choral compositions written by Professor Mathias who established the festival in 1972..
Artistic Director Ann Atkinson is delighted the evening will also include an interview, conducted by the Bishop of St Asaph, Gregory Cameron, with Professor Mathias’s daughter, Rhiannon Mathias, who is herself a Doctor of Music.
She said: “William Mathais was without doubt one of Wales’ greatest composers and I am, so glad I actually got to meet him. He was prolific and wrote so many wonderful compositions.
“Imagine the body of work he would have written had he not died so young. His death was a huge loss to music and to Wales in general.
“I’m sure the festival audience will be thrilled to hear his daughter, Rhiannon, talk about her father, his music and his legacy when she is interviewed as part of the anniversary concert.
“We are also delighted Paul Mealor will be attending and conducting not only some of his own works but the massed choir who will perform some of Mathais’ most cherished choral compositions.
“It will be wonderful to have a royal composer helping us celebrate the life and works of another royal composer.”
She said: “I’m honoured to be the festival’s current artistic director and delighted the festival continues more than four decades after he founded it. He is buried at St Asaph Cathedral and I always feel his presence.
“This year’s festival will celebrate the links between literature and music but for me, the highlight will be the William Mathias 80th Anniversary Concert.
“As part of the concert I’m currently putting together a Festival Choir and want to hear form male and female.
“This is a chance for young people to join a new and exciting choir which will perform alongside two other choirs during a very special concert. I would ask that anyone interested in joining the choir gets in touch.”
Dr Rhiannon Mathias is so excited about the concert which will be a wonderful celebration of her father’s work in what would have been his 80th year.
She said: “I hear his music, it is still played and performed so often, and whenever I hear it, naturally, I think of him. As a man he was warm and generous yet he could be serious and thoughtful and I think that comes through in his music.
“I’m quite looking forward to being interviewed about my father’s life by the Bishop of St Asaph although I have no idea what he will ask me!”
And Rhiannon is following in her father’s footsteps as, from September, she will be lecturing in music at the University of Wales, Bangor where her father was a professor of music and head of department between 1970 and 1988.
Flautist Rhiannon, recently performed Mozart’s concerto for harp and flute alongside Catrin Finch and the Wales Concert Orchestra in a celebration of her father’s life.
She will perform her father’s flute sonatina alongside pianist Iwan Llewelyn Jones during the concert which she says she is really excited about
She said: “He would have been so proud and pleased I think that people still enjoy his work and want to remember him in this way. I owe my musical genes to him and I’m so proud and delighted the festival is honouring him through this anniversary concert.
“I suppose I’m carrying on the family music tradition. I wrote a book entitled ‘A Blessed Trio of Sirens’ which was about three women composers, Grace Williams, Elizabeth Machonchy and Elizabeth Lutyens.
“My father actually commissioned Welsh composer Grace Williams to write a piece for the North Wales International Music Festival so in a way the story has gone full circle.”
Anyone interested in becoming a member of the Festival Choir can contact Artistic Director Ann Atkinson on 01745 584508. For more information about the North wales International Music Festival and for tickets visit www.nwimf.com
