- Peryn Clement Evans: Clarinet
- Bangor University Symphony Orchestra
- Leader: Chris Atherton
- Conductor: Gwyn L Williams
The first half of this concert might well be the perfect metaphor for the last 18 months, dominated as we have been by the pandemic. For a year and a half, musicians everywhere have been silenced, emerging only very recently onto floodlit concert platforms once again. Haydn paints the primeval darkness at the beginning of the universe in the magnificent Prelude to his oratorio the Creation. After the opening chord’s “big bang”, the music imaginatively describes the amorphous nature of early cosmology with prominent roles for the wind instruments. The music ends in darkness. Mozart’s radiant A major Clarinet Concerto provides the warmth and light of a new world. It was written for his friend Anton Stadler who was a court musician in Vienna and clearly a fabulous player.
Our concert ends with another work written at the end of Mozart’s life, his well-known and much-loved Symphony No 40. Only a few months separate these two works, but whereas the concerto is full of optimism and mischief, his penultimate Symphony is altogether a more troubled and unsettled work. Whatever the messages of his music, the grace and perfection of Mozart’s art is never in doubt. - Gwyn L Williams
Clarinet Soloist – Peryn Clement Evans
Peryn Clement-Evans is principal clarinettist and founding Artistic Director of Ensemble Cymru.
Peryn was a student at the Royal Northern College of Music and subsequently at Rotterdam’s Conservatorium with the Belgian international soloist, Walter Boeykens. During this time he was awarded scholarships to attend the American Conservatoire in Fontainebleau, France.
As a recitalist Peryn has premièred several works for clarinet and piano by composers of Wales including, Hoddinott, Jeffrey Lewis, Christopher Painter and John Metcalf. In 2008, he was awarded the Leo Abse and Cohen Award by the Guild for Promotion of Welsh Music for services to music in Wales. Peryn has performed as principal clarinettist with numerous orchestras including Northern Ballet, Manchester Camerata, Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia (Spain) and Mid-Wales Opera. More recently, Peryn performed as part of the Welsh Government cultural mission in Hong Kong and Shanghai including performing before special guest, Sir Tom Jones.
At the invitation of two leading international promoters in chamber music, Chamber Music New Zealand and Musica Viva in Australia, Peryn spent two-months researching how they were making chamber music more relevant to more people in local communities and developing professional opportunities for composers, and musicians in Australia and New Zealand.
Peryn was born in Liverpool in 1968. He is now married with four children and lives in Bangor, north Wales.
Conductor: Gwyn L Williams
Gwyn L Williams started his professional career as a freelance musician and composer. He was a lecturer in music at Bangor University before joining the BBC in 1980 becoming Senior Music Producer for Wales. A career change took him to the USA in 1998 as a visiting Professor of Choral Studies in Oklahoma City.
In 2001 he was appointed the first Chief Executive of the Llangollen International Eisteddfod. London 2012 brought the opportunity to become Creative Programmer for Wales, and, in this role, he was responsible for curating and developing a four-year programme of events and activities for the Cultural Olympiad.
In 2013, Gwyn was appointed Director of Ty Cerdd – Centre for Welsh Music, at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff. Distributing lottery funding to music societies in Wales and developing close partnerships with festivals and with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales to promote performances of contemporary Welsh music was integral to his role.
In 2021, Gwyn was appointed Director of Music at Bangor University.
Gwyn’s interests outside music include raising pigs and riding motorbikes and recently, in something of a life-in-reverse, back-packing in Africa, India and South East Asia.