Edward Rhys-Harry is the winner of this year's Musician's Medal, and he was honoured in a special ceremony on the Pavilion Stage today.
This year's task was to create a short opera with one chorus song and two solos together with a brief outline of the whole opera, using original Welsh words or ones that already exist. The prize is the Musicians’ Medal (Welsh Music Guild) and £750 (Sterling Asset Management) and a Scholarship worth £2,000 to promote the career of the winning composer.
The adjudicators were Gwion Thomas, John Metcalf and Patrick Young, and when delivering the adjudication on stage on behalf of his fellow judges, Gwion Thomas said, "The Eisteddfod set an extremely difficult challenge for the composers (and for judges) for the Musicians Medal this year. The brief was to write a chorus song and two solos out of a short opera. The nature of the challenge was reflected in the judging, which included a composer, a stage director and singer. Indeed, our stage director, Patrick Young, wants to emphasize that he is open to considering work from any Welsh talent for a possible partnership in the future...
"The subject of the winning work by Picard takes us to somewhere new and we find all the singers trapped in a broken lift. We get an energetic, dramatic chorus with the words coming over clearly, with the help of repetition... We hear the influence of American musical theatre, composers like Menotti, and the influence of Agatha Christie. There is promise here, even though there is innocence and simplicity to the composition, and we as judges have come to a majority decision to award this year's Musicians Medal to Picard."
Edward Rhys-Harry lives in London and works across the UK and internationally as a voice coach, adjudicator, composer, arranger and conductor.
His music is published by Universal Edition (Vienna), Boosey & Hawkes (UK), Chester Novello (UK), Banks Music Publications (UK), Chichester Music Press (UK) and Curiad Cyf., (Wales) and is performed regularly around the world.
Edward has directed performances for S4C, Sky Sports, ITV advertisements, ‘ident’ music for BBC 1,2,3,4 and all radio channels, as well as appearing on programmes such as BBC 1’s ‘The Apprentice – You’ve Been Fired’, ‘Dr Who’, the Rob Brydon Christmas Show (conducting Sir Bryn Terfel), ITV’s ‘This Morning’, Euro Express (part of the Football Euros 2016) and ‘Sports Relief’, along with comedian Jack Whitehall.
His vocal arrangements appear on the soundtrack for the FOXTV/BBC production of 'A Christmas Carol' (2019) with Guy Pearce. In 2021 he became an associate composer at London's National Theater on the Southbank, and his first composition was the music for the production of 'Under Milk Wood' directed by Lyndsey Turner, where he worked closely with Michael Sheen and Dame Sian Phillips. His saxophone concerto 'The Ballad of Lady Barham' is to be released on the 360 Music Label, and is performed by Max Goldberg on his 'Reflections' disc.
Edward is the Artistic Director of Côr Siambr Cymru/Chamber Choir Wales, an ad-hoc professional chamber choir, as well as ‘The Harry Ensemble’
He has conducted at music festivals in Melbourne Australia, Trevelin in Patagonia and Pennsylvania, Boston, Philadelphia and New York in the US.
Edward is currently the regular Musical Director of London Welsh Chorale and Harlow Chorus as well as the musical director and principal conductor of the London Welsh Male Voice Choir. He is also Honorary Conductor of Sandgrenska Manskören – a male choir in Karlskrona, Sweden, with whom he works every August.
In 2020 he was recognized for his commitment to Welsh music by receiving 'The Glanville Jones Award for an outstanding contribution to music in Wales', by the Welsh Music Association.
The Compositions and Judging, which includes the full judging for this competition together with details of the winners of all the Eisteddfod composition competitions, can be purchased following the Chairing Ceremony on Friday afternoon.
The full adjudication for this competition and the winners of all the other composition winners at this year’s Eisteddfod are included in the Cyfansoddiadau a Beirniadaethau which will go on sale at the end of the Chairing Ceremony on Friday afternoon.