University teams up with major music festival to help showcase Welsh talent to the world

Wrexham Glyndwr University has teamed up with a major music festival to help showcase Welsh talent to the world.

The university’s Plas Coch campus welcomed acts to film performances for FOCUS Wales as part of the BBC coverage of the pan-Wales multi-platform Gŵyl 2021 virtual event.

Steff Owens, Programme Leader – Sound Technology, recorded performances at the university’s TV studios, with everyone observing COVID 19 procedures.

Hip hop artist Dani Rain, also the drummer with North Wales pop punk outfit Neck Deep, and Cardiff-born grime MC Benji Wild performed at PGW’s TV studio in the Centre for the Creative Industries.

Steff said: “I think this was ideal because it’s obviously something that as a university that we could offer and it was a really worthwhile project, especially given that we have been in lockdown for a year and the live events industry has been so heavily affected.”

When the global pandemic made it impossible to hold their events over the last year, FOCUS Wales, Festival of Voice (WMC, Other Voices Cardigan) Theatr Mwldan) and Aberystwyth Comedy Festival (Little Wander) teamed up with BBC Cymru Wales, S4C, and AM, to create a digital event for Wales.

The festival unites audiences, artists and industry across Wales to celebrate creativity and share ideas during the most uncertain time in living memory.

Session and interviews were first broadcast as part of the BBC’s Culture in Quarantine initiative across the weekend of 6-7 March 2021, with more exclusive content going out across S4C YouTube, and the AM app over the coming weeks, as part of Gŵyl 2021.

Steff also helped with the recording process for FOCUS Wales’ presence at the world-renowned South by South West Festival in the US.

The event, which was filmed at Theatr Clwyd in Mold, was organised as a platform for acts who would have performed at FOCUS Wales’ showcase at SXSW in Texas this year, but for the COVID 19 pandemic. Acts on the bill included the likes of Adwaith, Afro Cluster, and Buzzard, Buzzard, Buzzard.

Andy Jones, co-founder music booker of Focus Wales, who graduated from Glyndwr in 2011 with a BSC in Sound and Studio Technology, said that close to 1,000 students had been
involved with the festival over the past 10 years.

He said: “It’s important to us to offer the opportunity to students to develop their ideas with FOCUS Wales, and work across our conference and festival, and other year round projects.”

Gŵyl 2021 featured a host of acts performing at venues across Wales, including William Aston Hall (located at the Plas Coch campus), Ty Pawb, and the Llangollen Town Hall.

Andy added: “It’s really shown off our partnership, and the facilities we have, including the university, to a global audience.”

All the Gŵyl 2021 performances broadcast so far can be viewed again online at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/emb5q9/performances#sxnqwh

To learn more about the courses available at Wrexham Glyndwr University, visit: https://www.glyndwr.co.uk/en/A-Z/

Pictured: Benji Wild, one of the performers.