Ontario Welsh Festival Concert

Join us to hear the wonderful Voices of Wales at Christ Church Cathedral Ottawa. Doors open at 7:45 p.m. Please note if you are registering for the Ontario Welsh Festival, please purchase your concert tickets with your festival registration at .

To find out more about the Ontario Gymanfu Ganu Association, vist us at Ontario Welsh Festival.

Welsh baritone John Ieuan Jones grew up on the North Wales coastal town of Rhos on Sea. Music has been an important part of his life from a young age, playing the piano, harp and having singing lessons with Sian Wyn Gibson and Brian Hughes.

He went on to study the voice and completed his studies at the Royal Northern College of Music in 2019, generously supported by The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation, the Drapers’ Company and the Sybil Tutton Opera Award by Help Musicians UK.

Since graduating, Ieuan has been busy making a name for himself as a versatile baritone, performing in opera, musical theatre and in straight theatre. Ieuan has performed roles with some of the UK’s main opera companies including Grange Park Opera and Welsh National Opera; in musical theatre productions including a brand new piece by Robat Arwyn performed at the opening concert of the National Eisteddfod of Wales alongside Sir Bryn Terfel; and last year made his debut at the National Theatre, London in The Corn is Green.

Ieuan has travelled internationally as a concert soloist in venues throughout the UK, in Europe, the USA, Australia and now Canada. At the National Eisteddfod of Wales, Ieuan has won both the Towyn Roberts Memorial Prize and the Osborne Roberts Prize, and as a result was invited to perform at NAFoW in Washington DC, where his close relationship with the festival began and he returned last year to perform in a series of concerts in Philadelphia. Ieuan released his debut album in 2020, is a familiar face on Welsh Television channel S4C and when he’s not singing, he’s exploring the Welsh mountain roads on his motorbike.

Steffan Lloyd Owen is a Welsh Baritone from Pentre Berw on the Isle of Anglesey in North Wales. Having received initial training from Sian Wyn Gibson, he is currently studying at the Royal Northern College in Manchester, where he is taught by Nicholas Powell. During his first year, Steffan won the Elsie Thurston competition and was later selected to represent the RNCM at the Kathleen Ferrier Awards in Blackburn, where, after fierce competition from 15 other soloists from various universities and conservatoires in the UK, was awarded first place – the second student from the RNCM to ever win the competition.

Steffan has been awarded with major vocal prizes in Wales, namely the W. Towyn Roberts Scholarship Prize, the Blue Riband Osborne Roberts Memorial Prize at the National Eisteddfod of Wales and the most promising young singer scholarship at the Urdd National Eisteddfod. As part of the Osborne Roberts Scholarship prize, Steffan performed as a soloist at the North America Festival of Wales in New York in August 2017. Steffan visited Patagonia in 2014 where he won the first prize in the Open Solo Competition at the National Eisteddfod of Patagonia (Argentina).

Recent concert highlights include soloist Beethoven’s Mass in C and Choral Fantasy as part of a concert with the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales and Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, reconstructing the historic Benefit Concert given by Beethoven in Vienna in 1808.

In summer 2019, Steffan performed the title-role in the children’s opera, Brundibar by Czech composer Hans Krása with Welsh National Youth Opera. Other recent roles include Lord Hate-Good in Vaughan Williams’s Pilgrim’s Progress and the lawyer, Ser Amantio Di Nicolao in Gianni Schicci at the RNCM. In 2017, he performed the roles of Sciarrone and Jailer in a semi-staged production of Tosca alongside Sir Bryn Terfel and Kristine Opolais with the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera at the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod. Other roles include Zaretsky in Eugene Onegin and El Dancairo in Carmen, both abbreviated Welsh language adaptations for Opra Cymru and George Jones in Street Scene at the RNCM.

In the summer of 2022, Steffan played the title role in Opra Cymru’s newly commissioned “Cyfrinach Y Brenin” and also released his debut album “Adra’n Ol” with Sain Records.

Welsh Soprano Eiry Price gained her masters in performance from the Royal College of Music, London, where she graduated with a distinction. In October 2019, Eiry was selected to be on the Josephine Baker trust’s list of approved singers. Her education was generously supported by the Countess of Munster Trust, the H. R. Taylor Trust and the Dick Maidment and Peggy Cooper Award.

A regular on the competition platform, in 2019 Eiry won the James Pantyfedwen Vocal Award and the Park Jones Scholarship at the National Eisteddfod. In August 2022 Eiry won the Towyn Roberts Scholarship competition at the National Eisteddfod in Wales.

In February 2020, she performed the role of Dorabella as part of the Royal College of Music’s Opera Scenes production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Britten Theatre, London. In 2021, Eiry performed the role of The Governess from Turn of the Screw, Britten. Her most recent performance was the role of Donna Elvira.

Eiry has recently worked with Opera Rara performing Offenbach’s La Princesse de Trébizonde with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Paul Daniel and Mercadante’s Il proscritto conducted by Carlo Rizzi. Eiry looks forward to working with Opera Rara in Spring 2023.

Rhiannon Pritchard graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in 2009.

She has been awarded many prizes for her work as an accompanist and repetiteur including the Welsh National Youth Opera Seligman Award, the RWCMD Mansel Thomas prize and Accompanist Prize, and Gwobr Goffa Eleri Evans, the accompanist prize at the National Eisteddfod.

Rhiannon is in demand as an accompanist all over Wales, and is an official accompanist for three of Wales’ main musical festivals: The National Eisteddfod, Llangollen International Eisteddfod and the Urdd Eisteddfod. Over the last few years, she has worked with many well-known singers including Bryn Terfel, Gwyn Hughes Jones, Rebecca Evans and Elin Manahan Thomas. She is currently a vocal coach and accompanist for RWCMD’s vocal department, and is also a private piano tutor.

Rhiannon is accompanist and deputy conductor of the 2014 BBC Choir of the Year, 2019/2022 S4C ‘Mixed Choir of Wales’, and the 2022 Côr y Byd winners Côr CF1. She is also accompanist and deputy musical director of Côr y Gleision, City Voices and the Morriston RFC Male Voice Choir.

She works extensively as a repetiteur and animateur with many different companies that include Welsh National Opera, the Aloud Charity, Live Music Now, Mahogany Opera, The Forget Me Not Chorus and Music in Hospitals. Within this area, she has vast experience working in many different settings (Mainstream, SEND, Dementia Units, Care Homes, and Hospital Wards) and with different age groups (Primary, Secondary, Young Adults and Older People). She also works regularly with the British Sinfonietta and the Novello Orchestra.

Recent productions include Welsh National Opera’s ‘Dead Man Walking’ and ‘Blaze of Glory’, Welsh National Youth Opera’s ‘Kommilitonen’, Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama’s ‘Cunning Little Vixen’, and Wales Millennium Centre’s ‘Tiger Bay’.

Her work has seen her travel to Africa, America, Canada, India, the UAE and Europe.

Host or Publisher Ontario Gymanfa Ganu Association (OGGA)