'The day following' with UPROAR Ensemble
Still from Tryweryn, the Story of a Valley (1965)
Our memories wane over time. Our memories compete with the world around us, scrambling to be remembered. Memories make us smile. Memories make us cry. As soon as they might make us feel joy, they may snatch that away and open up old heartache. Memories enable us to recognise who we are and where we are going. The day following is a work that allows us to reflect on memory, and specifically the memories of those whose communities have been taken from them. The music comes and goes. Snippets of old tunes are heard and buried. Distant hymns and church bells wash over us.
At the centre of the piece is archival footage of Capel Celyn village and farms of the Tryweryn Valley, first broadcast in 1965, weeks before the flooding of this Welsh-speaking community. The local school is closed, the chapel celebrates its last wedding, furniture that has stood in farmhouses for centuries is removed, graves are dug up and re-located. Thus did the Tryweryn Valley and the village of Capel Celyn become one vast reservoir via an Act of Parliament that allowed Liverpool City Council to proceed with the creation of its new water supply despite the opposition of every Welsh MP bar one. The day following is a sonic landscape for these now distant memories of a lost community in Wales. Permission to use the archival footage has been kindly granted by Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru | The National Library of Wales, the National Library of Wales Screen and Sound Archive, and Bangor University.
This work was commissioned by UPROAR ensemble and Michael Rafferty, for a Welsh Tour alongside works by Richard Baker, Lynne Plowman, Johns Adams and Olga Neuwirth in Spring 2024 .
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