CARDIFF, WALES – In ceremonies held on Sunday, Nov. 30, North Carolina Symphony Music Director Grant Llewellyn received the John Edwards Memorial Award, the most prestigious non-competitive award given in Wales for service to the nation’s music. The award, bestowed by the Welsh Music Guild, is named in honor of the Guild’s founder.
“The Welsh music world is thriving with numerous great artists and ensembles active in a rich environment of home grown music,” Llewellyn said. “To have been recognized as having played a significant part in this is indeed an honor.”
Previous recipients of the John Edwards Memorial Award include composers Alun Hoddinott, John Metcalf, and Grace Williams, performers Osian Ellis and Bryn Terfel, and institutions such as the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, the Vale of Glamorgan Festival, and the Lower Machen Festival.
The event was hosted by the Guild’s patron, Captain Sir Norman Lloyd-Edwards, and its president, Dr. Geraint Stanley Jones, CBE. The Welsh Music Guild was founded in 1955. In addition to Llewellyn’s award, other recipients of awards on Sunday include Jeff Howard: Joseph Parry Award; Guto Puw: Sir Geraint Evans Award; Mark Bowden: Granville Jones Memorial Award; Beverley Humphreys: Geraint Stanley Jones Award; and Emyr Afan: J Mervyn Williams Memorial Award.
Born in Tenby, South Wales, Llewellyn won a Conducting Fellowship to the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts in 1985 where he worked with Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Kurt Masur, and André Previn. As Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the early 1990s he conducted concerts at the Tanglewood Festival, the Boston Subscription Series and in the “Boston Pops.” He has been the North Carolina Symphony’s Music Director since 2004.
To date, he has held positions with three European orchestras: principal conductor of the Royal Flanders Philharmonic, principal guest conductor of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, and associate guest conductor with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Recent guest engagements include the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Bretagne, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
(We are grateful to FleishmanHillard for this announcement.)