Holy Week 2024 in Bangor Cathedral
Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. • John 19:41–42
The Co-directors of the R.S. Thomas Research Centre, Professor Jason Walford Davies (Head of the Department of Welsh and Celtic Studies) and Emeritus Professor Tony Brown (formerly of the Department of English and Linguistics) have curated a special collection of unpublished poems by R.S. Thomas – chosen from among the hundreds of such poems kept in the comprehensive archive of the Centre. These will be set to music by the composer Alex Mills, and the new piece will have its premiere at Bangor Cathedral on Good Friday, 29 March 2024, at 6pm.
R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) was a priest in the Church in Wales, a cultural figure of note, and one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. He graduated in Bangor in 1935. The R.S. Thomas Research Centre was established in 2000 by the Co-directors, and is internationally recognized as the leading academic centre for the study of R.S. Thomas’s work, together with that of his wife, the artist M.E. Eldridge (1909–91).
Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. • John 19:41-42
