Prize for Black Sheep at Llangollen!

Black Sheep Harmony have been on tour! 

At 6am on a Friday morning during an exceptional July heatwave, the Sheep boarded a coach at our base in Hanham Community Centre for the trip of a lifetime!

Our driver, Dan, welcomed us aboard and we were off on the long trip to sing at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod, treating Dan to renditions of several of our repertoire songs on the way.

Our journey to the Eisteddfod actually started in the winter of 2024 when we recorded our audition song, sent it off and crossed our fingers. In April this year we heard the great news - we were in - then the hard work began.

The music, performance and wardrobe teams had plenty to do in the lead up to Llangollen which included choreography for Bring Me Little Water Sylvy, a song by the blues singer, Lead Belly, with body percussion devised by the amazing Moria Smiley - which took some learning! Thanks to Kathy and Sue for demonstrating and teaching us the body percussion.

The wardrobe team coordinated our look, with two different costumes - our new blue/green palette for one class and black with beautiful hand-crafted red sequinned accessories for the other.

Our early start on the Friday morning was necessary because we were actually singing in the Open Choirs class in the afternoon where, tired but excited, we competed with ‘Bring Me Little Water Sylvy’; ‘Stitches’ (a hit by Shawn Mendes) and ‘I know an Old Woman’ - a tradition nursery rhyme with a humorous choral twist. We achieved a score of 83% and were very proud to have shared the stage with the eventual winners of the ‘Choir of the World’ competition, the New Zealand Youth Choir.

After our performance in the ‘big tent’, we boarded the bus and went to sing to a lovely audience in Centenary Square in the pretty town of Llangollen, then cooled off with much deserved ice creams and a wander round the shops.

After dinner, a small flock of Sheep returned to the Eisteddfod site to see the amazing quartet Il Divo and their special guest Laura Wright. Between them, they put on a thrilling show performed in front of incredible, evocative back-projections.

The following day dawned hot and sunny and it was time to get ready for the Female voice class where we performed the famous Bohemian Rhapsody by Freddie Mercury and Queen followed by Eric Whiteacre’s Sleep, a beautiful requiem arranged in eight parts by our very own Pete ‘Nooj’ Nugent.

We were absolutely thrilled to achieve third place with. score of 88% and a cash prize of £200, which was presented to Nooj on the stage, cheered on by the Sheep.

 

Later that afternoon, we wandered in to Llangollen where Black Sheep in-house quartet, The SongSmiths, sang a few well received songs to people gathered in Centenary Square.

Another group of sheep boarded the bus again on Saturday evening to return to the Eisteddfod to watch the thrilling finale of four days of world-class choral performances, the Choir of the World competition. All the winners of the various choral classes competed for the prestigious Pavarotti Trophy, which was won by the wonderful New Zealand Youth Choir who launched into an impromptu haka in the audience before rushing to the stage to collect their prize.

Dan then took us back to our hotel for a nightcap - Nicky had her own version!

 

On Sunday morning it was time to leave and, on the way home, we rounded out our trip with a stop-off at the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, an incredible, vertiginous construction high above the river Dee valley, which carries both a canal and a pathway where canoeists, canal boats and walkers can cross the river that flows so far below, so close that they can touch each other. 

 

Our visit to the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct ended with a mini concert to both walkers and boaters, which went down very well with their ice-creams. 

Then it was back on the bus for the final leg of our journey back to Hanham, tired but happy at our achievements during the weekend.

Thank you, Dan, for looking after us, you made it so easy for us on our Welsh tour!

And a few of us even appeared on the telly very briefly - in an Eisteddfod  highlights programme on the BBC Welsh channel S4C!



At the rehearsal following our Llangollen experience, presentations were made to Kathy for her dedication to wardrobe and performance, and to Anne for all her logistical organisation.

 
And of course to Pete, our wonderful MD!

One of our flock even wrote a poem and created a wonderful giant card (signed by us all) as a memento of the weekend for Pete, without whose vision and encouragement we would never have made it to the Llangollen Eisteddfod.



Sue Davis