Month: January 2022

“Cymanfa Codi’r To” on St David’s Day

We’re holding a Cymanfa Codi’r To (communal sing-along) at the Old Windmill, Spon St CV1 3BA, at 8pm on St David’s Day, that’s Tuesday 1 March. The idea is that we sing some songs and provide lyric sheets and chord sheets, and everyone else joins in with the words or guitar chords, or percussion, or whatever instruments they care to bring along.

People are welcome to contribute songs and tunes themselves if they know something relevant to Welsh music and culture, it doesn’t have to be in the Welsh language.

We’re hoping to borrow some flags from the Cambrian Society and decorate the place a bit!

See here for more details.

Poster for St David's Day at the Windmill

Hen Lane Social Club

In our next outing on January 14th we were the guests of Coventry Cambrian Society for an evening of Bingo and Welsh Song at Hen Lane Social Club. We sang a few plygain, some Welsh classics and some songs in English. We would like to thank our friends at Hen Lane for an excellent evening and furthermore one in which several members of Côr Cymraeg Coventry won prizes both large and small. Below shows the club adorned with flags and daffodils before the event.

Plygain at the Old Windmill

Côr Cymraeg Coventry have arranged (at the last minute) an evening of plygain singing at the Old Windmill pub in Spon Street Coventry, on Wednesday January 12, starting at 8pm. Plygain are a bit like folk style Christmas carols but are sung equally before and after Christmas. January 12 is the “old New Year”, that is to say the day that would have been New Year’s Day under the Julian calendar. In 1752 a correction was made to the calendar removing eleven days, as the calendar had gone out of step with the movement of the earth round the sun. The new calendar which we still use is called the Gregorian calendar. The Julian date for New Year is still celebrated in Cwm Gwaun, Pembrokeshire, in accordance with local traditions.

Plygain are usually sung in the context of a church service and by many different groups, but unfortunately there are not enough plygain groups in Coventry to do such an event justice, so we will just be singing them as songs in the pub.