By Jed Robertson.

Today marks Dydd Miwsig Cymru, a day to celebrate all things in the world of Welsh language music. As a session musician, producer and composer who has had the pleasure of working within the Welsh and wider Celtic music scenes for almost a decade, I feel like many people are missing out on the eclectic mix of music genres available to listen to.

To a non-regular listener, the term ‘Welsh language music’ may immediately conjure the idea of harpists, traditional songs or choral arrangements. However, this is not the case.  The range of music on offer is as diverse as the music of any language and these days this is more evident than ever.

While artists such as Mari Mathias take these traditional motifs and place them within a more modern sound world featuring electric guitars and synthesisers⁽¹⁾, bands like Mellt, Gwilym⁽²⁾ and Adwaith use the language as just that, a vehicle for lyrics in otherwise unassociated genres. The fact that bilingual acts Hana Lili and Chroma have recently supported Cold Play and Foo Fighters is testament to the quality of the music they produce.

Something I would like to see more of going forward is collaboration between Welsh language artists and artists from other minority languages. A great example of this is Awyr/Himmel/Sky⁽³⁾ by Foxxglove and CHAILD, which features Welsh and Luxembourgish as well as English (the common language between the two artists). This is also commonly seen at Celtic music festivals such as Lorient where Welsh, Cornish, Bretton, Gaelic, Manx and more are both spoken, sung and celebrated together.

While performing at the Welsh Music Prize in 2023, I met Talulah⁽⁴⁾, a Welsh artist living in London who founded the city’s first regular Welsh language music night. In such a melting pot of cultures, imagine the breadth of cross-culture collaboration born from such an event.

The Welsh language music landscape is a roiling, thriving scene that transcends language barriers, borders and any preconceived notion of genre but is vastly undiscovered. The scene receives support from various funding bodies such as Horizons, Ffilm Cymru and the Fortè Project, and with continued support, I think the Welsh music scene could reach the grand heights that it deserves,

If you’d like to check out a regularly updated list of Welsh language music both new and old, check out Miwsig y Siarter Iaith⁽⁵⁾ on BBC Sounds. I’d also highly recommend catching these artists in a live setting in places like Tŷ Tawe, Clwb Ifor Bach, Tŷ Pawb and beyond.

Happy listening! – Mwynhewch!

1. ‘Annwn’ by Mari Mathias: youtu.be/3ecaje4cUIU?si=cIEPjkxoZWLpcPGz
2. ‘cynbohir’ by Gwilym and Hana Lili: youtu.be/pjmD14ig8CE?si=eFnaW84h7FBPJ4QZ
3. ‘Awyr/Himmel/Sky’ by Foxxglove and CHAILD: youtu.be/os3pWTXsBRw?si=QD5yNpzZ_0dAHSDF
4. ‘Solas’ by Talulah: youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kc-U1zXpezg2dK7r1ZY-F87rmFj5VOLIo&si=_vapdZteFZgcDp01
5. Miwsig y Siarter Iaith: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015t6n