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©robcullen17012023

“A touch of Celtic magic…Hauntingly beautiful” (The Western Mail)

Celtic Connections award-winner, Bethan Nia has just released her stunning debut album ‘Ffiniau’.  Originally from Cefn Cribwr, a village outside Bridgend, Bethan now lives in Pontypridd with her daughter and partner. 

‘Ffiniau’ (Borders) has already been hailed as a ‘modern folk classic’.  The album is produced by REM studio whiz Charlie Francis and explores the boundaries that exist between people, languages, and worlds. The songs are deeply rooted in the Welsh tradition, but with subtle beats and atmospheric strings underpinning Bethan’s sparkly harp and bilingual vocals.

The album is already attracting rave reviews.

“What Bethan Nia is doing with Welsh music is similar to the impact Moya Brennan had on Gaelic song in the 1980s…mesmerising. This might just be the international Celtic music breakthrough Wales deserves” (Irish Music Magazine)

“There is something of Kate Bush’s ‘Aerial’ in this…the beauty of Bethan Nia’s writing and performances on this varied album is undeniable” (Buzz Magazine)

For further news check out  http://bethan-nia.net/

Also performing their work will be Mike Jenkins, Stephen Payne, Marcelle Newbold, Mike McNamara, Pete Akinwunmi, Nicholas McGaugehy & Rob Cullen.

VoicesontheBridge is hosted by Jeff Baxter of StoryvilleBooks.

VoicesontheBridge is organised by Rob Cullen.

Performers will be:

Bethan Nia – Harp

Marcelle Newbold

Stephen Payne

Mike Jenkins

Mike McNamara

Nick McGaughey

Rob Cullen

This is a free event with wine and nibbles

VoicesontheBridge is organised by Rob Cullen

The event is hosted by Jeff Baxter and @StoryvilleBooks

The ghost road

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lightest pale-yellow whitening moorland grass stretching

waved wind shifts slow flows again in the uplands plateau

distant raven specked black wheel unhinged glide soars

in white grey clouded skies above the flat worn track

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sinister Catherine wheeled turbines, hypnotically spin,

the latest transient seal these margins have no value

this hard edged landscape has no worth in any time

giant windmills stud and transfigure the landscape

the latest scarring, killing the calm of the ghost road

another sacrifice made of wilderness and this time

in a land of golden plovers and the call of curlews

nothing is sacred where sustainability is concerned.

…

I walked wild on the high slopes when I was a child

in a sheep trailed playground on black curtained slopes,

white grassed land walked once by so many men,

so many breathless men taking the air on a Sunday

in the silence of a long year, in those hardest of times

too many deaths, too many unannounced leavings

too many lives unlived, cut short and each one

someone’s child, someone’s daughter, someone’s son.

…

on the mountains high slope men walked there

to still splayed nerves frayed thrummed tension

the wired flex electric cables naked in white daylight,

for so many days I’d walk out onto this ghost road

it was a place to breathe clear air, a place to be alone,

a gathering place for collecting remnants, a day’s thoughts,

a place of quietness, of the skylark, a place of wildness too

a place of calm and the wind blowing in from Atlantic seas.

…

I look constantly back to a past but what of the present?

And those places in the choir stalls emptied, unfilled,

in the cold ground, the boys and the girls lay stilled,

sacrifices of a different kind, somehow progress allowed.

©robcullen2021

Remember to keep a light burning in a window to welcome family, friends and strangers out on the road finding their way home…its an old tradition… worth remembering….

Were still here no matter what’s thrown at us…a Come ye all celebration with music, song and maybe a poem or two!

With The Emeralds and some surprise guests!

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From 6.00pm Under the Raging Moon – One night with Dylan Thomas in Greenwich Village NYC & PeterThabit Jones with the Seventh Quarry Actors

Please note – The reading is not suitable for children.