A song for Wales
A Music School student will be among the finalists on this year’s Cân i Gymru contest. Nia Davies Williams, from Aberdaron is studying an MA in Music at Bangor and has won a place in the live final of the song contest with her song Cain.
Nia co-composed the song with local author Sian Owen even though they had never met before. Nia explained,
“The author of the lyrics, Sian Owen from Anglesey came forward after hearing that I was looking for some lyrics to compose a song. She offered her lyrics and I put them to music and submitted it as an entry in the Cân i Gymru contest.
“The song compares life to a game of chess. Like the squares in chess, life can be a black or grey square at times but there’s always a white square in the distance. Falling in love is definitely a white square.”
The competition will be broadcast live on S4C from Pontrhydfendigaid on Sunday the 4th of March and the winner will take home £7,500 and the chance to represent Wales in the Pan Celtic Festival next year.
This won’t be the first time that Nia has had success in the contest as she also took part in 2004 with the song Gadael that she co-wrote with Huw Erith.
Although Nia was composing long before she started her MA at Bangor University, she says that studying Music definitely helps. She added,
“The staff at the School of Music are very friendly and welcoming and the subject areas covered in the courses on offer are vast. The school offers traditional courses as well as more modern and contemporary ones. The ATM (Access to Masters) has also been a big help to me, allowing me to continue with my studies at Bangor as well as working with Elen ap Robert on the Tonic project at the Galeri, Caernarfon.”
As part of her MA course which concentrates on the effect of music with patients suffering from dementia, Nia will be travelling to the USA in May,
“I was lucky enough to be accepted to deliver a paper on dementia in the Society for the Arts in Healthcare’s international conference in Detroit. I hope to continue with my studies in this new area at Bangor next year.”
Publication date: 2 March 2012