Connah’s Quay’s Royal composer Paul Mealor joins elite club after receiving rare award from King

A royal composer who wrote music for the Coronation was “honoured and overjoyed” to be presented with a rare honour given personally by the King.

According to Paul Mealor, from Connah’s Quay, the Artistic Director of the North Wales International Music Festival at St Asaph Cathedral, the investiture ceremony at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh was one of the proudest moments of his life.

The King presented Prof Mealor with the award, appointing him a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order (LVO) for his services to the royal family, including original compositions for last year’s coronation and the 2011 wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, now the Prince and Princess of Wales.

He became the member of an elite club as the first composer to receive this award, a gift given by the King to people who have served him in a personal way, since Sir Arthur Bliss in 1969 and before him, Sir Edward Elgar.

Separately, he has previously been presented with the Coronation Medal for his contribution to the service at Westminster Abbey. He wrote the Welsh language Kyrie, a short prayer set to music, which was sung by superstar bass baritone Sir Bryn Terfel.

Prof Mealor took time out of preparations for this year’s North Wales International Music Festival to attend the prestigious occasion, saying he had been “shocked and surprised” to discover he was to receive the award when the official letter arrived.

He said: “The letter went on to ask if I would accept it or not. Of course I did but it was not something I expected at all. I have composed music for many Royal occasions but never thought an award of this sort would be presented to me.

“The King and Queen were spending a week in Edinburgh and the ceremony was at Holyrood and the award was presented to me by the King after I was called into a separate room.

“It with just the King present along with my family when he put the medal on my chest and congratulated me and we chatted about the work I have done and the work I am doing at present. He appeared to be very familiar with the work I have done.

“This was the first time I had been to Holyrood and it was a very special day for all my family.”

Prof Mealor’s full focus is now on putting the final touches to the “exciting programme” at the 2024 North Wales International Music Festival which runs from from September 12 to 21.

It’s his first as the Artistic Director of the event that’s now firmly established as one of the highlights of the cultural calendar in Wales, following in the footsteps of his immediate predecessor Ann Atkinson.

Taking the helm has brought his remarkable career full circle because he was mentored as a young musical protégé by the festival’s founder, the late Professor William Mathias, a fellow royal composer who would have been 90 this year.

The festival’s headline sponsor is the arts loving care organisation, Pendine Park, via the Pendine Arts and Community Trust which supports arts and community activities.

It has also been supported by main grant funders the Arts Council of Wales, Colwinston Charitable Trust, Arts & Business Cymru and Tŷ Cerdd. This year’s festival is also part funded by the UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund for Denbighshire.

Prof Mealor said: “The theme for the festival this year is transformations and everything that it encompasses from the physical and natural world to the poetic, the spiritual and the metaphysical and everything in between.

“We aim to explore how the arts can transform us and our communities and, through various art forms, styles and genres how we are, in turn, transformed by them.

“The opening concert will mark the 90th anniversary of the Gresford Mining Disaster and I have co-commissioned a new work, Gresford: Up From Underground, from Welsh composer Jon Guy and poet Grahame Davies, for the NEW Sinfonia orchestra and the NEW Voices community choir.”

Top brass band, Foden’s Band, are first-time visitors to the festival and leading Welsh folk band Ar Log will perform an evening of their popular classics and some new songs.

Baritone Jeremy Huw Williams explores the music of founder William Mathias along with Fauré and the world famous King’s Singers make a welcome return to the festival with their dazzling vocal artistry.

The combined choirs of Trystan Lewis’s North Wales Choral Union make their festival debut with a performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah.

Another highlight this year will be the inaugural Pendine Young Musician of Wales competition that’s being funded by the Pendine Arts and Community Trust.

Entries for the competition are now being accepted via the festival’s website, www.nwimf.com and the closing date for applications is 5pm on August 31.

It’s open to all musicians who were born or who are living in Wales, or who are Welsh nationals studying abroad, and were aged 21 or under on January 1, 2024.

The winner will receive a cash prize of £2,000 and the Pendine Trophy, as well as being invited back to perform at next year’s festival.

BBC Radio Cymru will be broadcasting a number of events from the festival including the final of the Pendine Young Musician of Wales competition.

The Festival Fringe is a new departure and takes place in other venues in St Asaph and features an RnB/Hip-hop concert with Aisha Kigs, Welsh folk music with Angharad Jenkins and Patrick Rimes, a poetry and literary evening with Grahame Davies and a first ever North Wales Comedy Club night.

Professional musicians from Live Music Now Cymru will stage a dementia friendly and inclusive concert, as well as the popular tots’ concert, and interactive events within schools, care homes and St Kentigern Hospice as part of the festival’s annual community tour.

Further details about the festival programme and how to apply to take part in the Pendine Young Musician of Wales competition are available online at www.nwimf.com. Tickets will be on sale from Friday 19 July.