"I'm pleased that the festival programme attracted so many favourable comments and look forward to a world-class celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Festival in 2008.

The King's Singers, who headlined the festival, wrote: "Some concerts are, quite simply, 'special'. Many things can contribute to such a feeling but it draws on everything from the artistic planning, the artists, the venue, the heritage and the audience to mean so much to so many."

The Kathryn Tickell Band from Northumberland opened this year's star-studded festival with a sell out performance for an appreciative folk audience. Among other highlights was a well attended Open Day when people were invited to share their memories and stories about life and music-making at Gregynog Hall during the time of sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies.

This session was followed by outstanding free performances by the brilliant percussionists O Duo, who also enchanted local children at the festival's annual Schools' Day, and virtuoso violinists Simon Hewitt Jones and David Worswick, who also enthralled residents at Bethshan in Newtown.

Leading young tenor Andrew Kennedy, who appears at this year's Last Night of the Proms in the Royal Albert Hall in September, closed the day's programme with a powerful and thought-provoking recital of song.

World-famous clarinettist Emma Johnson stepped into the breach at very short notice when illness prevented trumpeter Alison Balsom from appearing at the festival's second weekend, rewarding the audience with a virtuosic and moving performance that ranged across the whole clarinet repertoire.

This year's Gregynog Young Musician of the Year, selected from six finalists, was harpist Glain Dafydd from Bangor, who added the accolade to her 2007 Texaco Young Musician of Wales title.

The festival, one of the oldest in the UK, is held in the intimate setting of the Music Room at Gregynog, a magnificent black and white country house set in 750 acres of landscaped grounds on the edge of Tregynon village, five miles from Newtown.

With help from Walford Davies and Dora Herbert-Jones, the Davies sisters devised the Gregynog Festivals of Music and Poetry between 1933-'38 and attracted many other leading musicians of the day to their home, including Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst and Adrian Boult.

The Festival seeks to continue this tradition of world-class music-making in an `at home` atmosphere."

Article by Rhian Davies

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