The North Wales Choral Festival took another massive step forward towards its aim of becoming one of the UK’s top choral festivals as 25 choirs descended upon Venue Cymru in Llandudno for the 24th annual event. Choirs from across Wales, England and Ireland took part in 6 classes over the newly extended 2 day period. Saturday saw the Youth, Mixed, Ladies and Male Voice classes, with Sunday hosting Barbershop and Open.

In the Youth category, last years runner’s up, Bradford Girls Youth Choir narrowly saw off Anglesey’s Côr Ieuenctid Môn and Northern Ireland’s St. Cecilia’s College Choir into 2nd and 3rd places respectively. The Mixed section saw a Welsh choir top the standings as Côr y Gleision came 1st with Lancaster University Choir in 2nd and Acquire from Rhuddlan in 3rd place.

After lunch the ladies took to the stage in an extremely competitive section, which was won by Leicestershire based The Chanterelles, who were closely followed by Renaissance and Opus 44 of Yorkshire.  Two local choirs battled it out in the Male Voice section, which was sponsored by clothing suppliers Lyn Oakes, as Flint Male Voice Choir just edged out Côr Meibion Colwyn to take the spoils.

Saturday evening had an additional element to the festival for the first time, with a concert by Britain’s Got Talent finalist Faryl Smith, supported by string quartet Raven and Anglesey’s very own ‘voice of paradise’ Lucy Kelly. A large audience filed into the arena at Venue Cymru after the fireworks had taken place and were fortunate enough to see Faryl close the show with a classic performance of Calon Lân.

Glitter and jangles were the order of the day on Sunday as the Barbershop choirs came to town in their category which was sponsored by The St George’s Hotel. The support between the choirs was great to see as Heartbeat from Cheshire just took 1st place in front of last year’s winners Affinity from Stockport and Yorkshire’s Abbey Belles. The final class of the day was the Llandudno Town Council sponsored Open category, which was again won by Heartbeat, who brought a sparkle to the stage with their permanent smiles and glitzy costumes.

Adjudicators Mervyn Cousins, Chris Mallinson and Gwyn Williams were extremely excited by the festival and the potential it has to progress even further. The festival is organised by Conwy County Borough Council with the major sponsors being Stena Line. Festival organiser, Alun Pritchard said “We’re extremely pleased with how the festival has gone this year. Extending to take place over 2 days was a risk, but we believe it has paid off.” He also added “We have been highlighted by the Major Events Unit of the Welsh Government as a potential growth event for Wales and the funding that they are supplying will help us to develop our website to become multi-lingual, whilst also increasing our stage production. This should help to attract more choirs, from further afield, who will spend money in the local area. Next year, we are looking to extend the festival to take place over 3 days, bringing in additional economic benefit”

Next year’s festival is due to take place on 26th – 28th October, 2012. For further information, please visit: www.northwaleschoralfestival.co.uk.