The Machynlleth Festival takes place in the Auditorium

Auditorium

An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances at venues such as theatres. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens.- Etymology :...

 of The Tabernacle

The Tabernacle, Machynlleth

The Tabernacle, Machynlleth, is a former Wesleyan chapel. In the mid-1980s, it was converted from a Wesleyan chapel into a centre for the performing arts, opening in 1986. Since then the Museum of Modern Art has grown up alongside it, with six exhibition spaces....

, Machynlleth

Machynlleth

Machynlleth is a market town in Powys, Wales. It is in the Dyfi Valley at the intersection of the A487 and the A489 roads.Machynlleth was the seat of Owain Glyndŵr's Welsh Parliament in 1404, and as such claims to be the "ancient capital of Wales". However, it has never held any official...

, in late August every year. During the week eminent performers take part in events ranging from recitals for children to jazz. Special features are the Hallstatt Lecture

Hallstatt Lecture

The Hallstatt Lecture is an hour-long lecture in any European language on some aspect of ancient and modern Celtic culture. It is given at The Tabernacle, Machynlleth in Wales at lunchtime on the Wednesday of each Machynlleth Festival.Past Lecturers:...

 on some aspect of Celt

Celt

The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....

ic culture and the Glyndwr Award

Glyndwr Award

The Glyndŵr Award is made for an Outstanding Contribution to the Arts in Wales. It is given by the Machynlleth Tabernacle Trust to pre-eminent figures in music, art and literature in rotation...

 for an Outstanding Contribution to the Arts in Wales.

Performers (1987-1996)

Performers in the first three Machynlleth Festivals included: tenor Paul Agnew

Paul Agnew

Paul Agnew is a Scottish operatic tenor.Agnew read music as a Choral Scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the Consort of Musicke, the Tallis Scholars, the Sixteen and the Gothic Voices, before embarking on a solo career in the early 1990s.Closely associated with William...

 (1987), oboist Nicholas Daniel

Nicholas Daniel

Nicholas Daniel is a British oboist and conductor. He won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition at eighteen and has since become one of the United Kingdom's most distinguished soloists...

 (1988), soprano Elizabeth Vaughan (1988), actor Leonard Fenton

Leonard Fenton

Leonard Fenton is a British actor, best known for his role as Dr. Harold Legg in the BBC soap opera, EastEnders.-Early life:...

 (1988 & 1989), saxophonist Don Rendell

Don Rendell

Donald Percy 'Don' Rendell is an English jazz musician and arranger, specialising on tenor saxophone, but also playing soprano saxophone, flute, and clarinet....

 (1989) and bass-baritone Bryn Terfel

Bryn Terfel

Bryn Terfel Jones CBE is a Welsh bass-baritone opera and concert singer. Terfel was initially associated with the roles of Mozart, particularly Figaro and Leporello, but has subsequently shifted his attention to heavier roles, especially those by Wagner....

 (1989).

Among the Festival artistes in the next few years were: Alan Skidmore

Alan Skidmore

Alan Skidmore is a tenor saxophonist of jazz and blues music, son of the saxophonist Jimmy Skidmore.-As a sideman:...

, tenor saxophonist, 1990; Bernard Roberts

Bernard Roberts

Bernard Roberts is a notable English pianist. His treatment of the cycle of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas has been particularly highly acclaimed.He is also noted for his recordings of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach...

, pianist, and Kit and The Widow

Kit and The Widow

Kit and The Widow are a double act, performing humorous songs in the vein of Tom Lehrer or Flanders and Swann; they also cite Anna Russell as an influence. They are Kit Hesketh-Harvey and Richard Sisson . They have performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and in West End theatres, and accept private...

, 1991; and Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band

Incredible String Band

The Incredible String Band were a psychedelic folk band formed in Scotland in 1966. The band built a considerable following, especially within British counterculture, before splitting up in 1974...

, 1992.

The 1994 Festival, the last to contain four events per day for eight days, featured musicologist John Amis

John Amis

John Preston Amis , is a British broadcaster, classical music critic, music administrator, and writer. He has been a frequent contributor for The Guardian and to BBC radio and television music programming....

, violinist Tasmin Little

Tasmin Little

Tasmin Little is an English violinist.She studied under Pauline Scott at the Yehudi Menuhin School and later at the Guildhall School of Music, coming to prominence as a string section finalist in the 1982 BBC Young Musician of the Year competition...

, soprano Joan Rodgers, clarinettist Emma Johnson and pianist Joshua Rifkin

Joshua Rifkin

Joshua Rifkin is an American conductor, keyboard player, and musicologist. He is best known by the general public for having played a central role in the ragtime revival in the 1970s with the three albums he recorded of Scott Joplin's works for Nonesuch Records, and to classical musicians for his...

.

In 1995 the Festival was reduced for reasons of economy to two events each day, more or less the pattern of the first Festival. Performers included broadcaster Richard Baker

Richard Baker (broadcaster)

Richard Baker OBE is a British broadcaster best known as a newsreader for the BBC News from 1954 to 1982. He was a contemporary of Kenneth Kendall and Robert Dougall and was the first person to read the BBC Television News in 1954. At one time he lived in Barnet, North London...

 and mezzo-soprano Sarah Walker.

Jazz singer George Melly

George Melly

Alan George Heywood Melly was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for The Observer and lectured on art history, with an emphasis on surrealism.-Early life and career:He was born in Liverpool and was educated at Stowe...

 and trombonist Christian Lindberg

Christian Lindberg

Christian Lindberg is a Swedish trombonist, conductor and composer.As a youth, Lindberg learned to play the trumpet, and subsequently began to learn the trombone at age 17. He originally borrowed a trombone to join his friends' Dixieland jazz group, inspired by records of Jack Teagarden...

 were amongst the highlights of 1996.

Further reading

• Jan Morris
  Jan Morris
  Jan Morris CBE is a Welsh nationalist, historian, author and travel writer. She is known particularly for the Pax Britannica trilogy, a history of the British Empire, and for portraits of cities, notably Oxford, Venice, Trieste, Hong Kong, and New York City.With an English mother and Welsh father,...
  
  and Twm Morys: A Machynlleth Triad (Penguin, London, 1995) ISBN 0-14-023612-0