|
|
| Home > City Guide - Cardiff - Culture | ||
|
||
|
Culture Wales celebrates its ancient Celtic heritage at numerous Eisteddfod festivals around the country, although it is in the field of popular music that the nation has captured the worldwide imagination over recent years. Bands like Stereophonics, Catatonia, Super Furry Animals and Manic Street Preachers have achieved huge success. And more are on the way. Cardiff is the cultural capital of Wales, with top-quality venues, including the Oval Basin, an open-air auditorium next to Mermaid Quay, Cardiff Bay, which is designed for concerts and special events. Canolfan Mileniwm Cymru (Wales Millennium Centre) is scheduled to open on the Waterfront at Cardiff Bay in late 2004 (website: www.wmc.org.uk), providing a new home for organisations such as Welsh National Opera (website: www.wno.org.uk) and the Dance Company of Wales (website: www.diversionsdance.co.uk). Tickets to cultural events and performance are available for purchase via the various venues, either online or by telephone. Once in Cardiff, visitors are able to purchase tickets in person from the box offices. Good sources of detailed information are available online at Virtual Cardiff (website: www.virtualcardiff.co.uk) and What’s On in Cardiff (website: www.metroplex.co.uk), which have links to many cultural venues and events taking place around the city. Music: The male voice choir is an internationally acclaimed symbol of Welsh pride. Local exponents include the Côr Meibion Caerdydd – Cardiff Male Choir (website: www.malevoicechoir.net/wel/cardiff.htm) and Côr Meibion De Cymru – South Wales Male Choir (website: www.south-wales-mvc.demon.co.uk). The latter is the largest male choir in Wales. St David’s Hall, The Hayes (tel: (029) 2087 8444, box office or 2087 8420, for recorded information; website: www.stdavidshallcardiff.co.uk), is the national concert hall for Wales and Cardiff’s main music venue and plays host to the biannual Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. The next event takes place in 2003. Competitors in previous years include world-famous baritone Bryn Terfel, in 1989. The hall is also the performance home of the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales (tel: (0800) 052 1812; website: www.bbc.co.uk/wales/now). The Welsh National Opera (tel: (029) 2046 4666; website: www.wno.org.uk) performs at the New Theatre, Park Place (tel: (029) 2087 8889; fax: (029) 2087 8879; website: www.newtheatrecardiff.co.uk), but will relocate to the Wales Millennium Centre (see above) in 2003. Theatre: The New Theatre (see above) was founded in 1906 and completely refurbished in the 1980s. It is now the premier venue in Wales for touring theatre and dance companies and is, for the time being, the home of the Welsh National Opera (see above). Companies playing at the New Theatre in recent years have included the Royal National Theatre, Clwyd Theatr Cymru and the Northern Ballet Theatre. The Sherman Theatre, Senghennydd Road (tel: (029) 2064 6900, box office; fax: (029) 2064 6902; e-mail: marketing@shermantheatre.demon.co.uk; website: www.shermantheatre.co.uk), has a resident company and hosts national and international tour groups in its main and studio theatres. Maintaining the longstanding oral tradition in Wales, Sampler (tel: (029) 2048 4663; e-mail: sampler@poetic.com; website: www.sampler-poetry.freeuk.com) organises poetry readings and other events in Cardiff. Dance: The new Wales Millennium Centre (see above) will be home to the contemporary dance group, Dance Company of Wales (tel: (029) 2046 5345; fax: (029) 2046 5346; e-mail: diversions@diversionsdance.co.uk; website: www.diversionsdance.co.uk), which commissions and premieres work from cutting-edge international choreographers, frequently touring Wales, the UK and abroad. Film: Mainstream films can be seen at UGC, Mary Ann Street, the Capitol Odeon, Station Terrace, and Monico, Pantbach Road, as well as at the multiplex cinemas at UCI, Atlantic Wharf, Cardiff Bay, and Showcase, Nantgarw, north of the city. The Chapter Arts Centre screens independent and alternative films at its Market Road centre in Canton. Bollywood productions are a speciality of the Galaxy Globe, Roath. Films set in Cardiff range from the 1959 classic, Tiger Bay, directed by J Lee Thompson and starring Hayley and John Mills, to Human Traffic (1999), Justin Kerrigan’s portrayal of one wild weekend in Cardiff. Cultural events: Cardiff Singer of the World, takes place in June every other year at St David’s Hall (tel: (012) 2287 8500). Mid-July sees the Welsh Proms at St David’s Hall, which takes place during the annual Cardiff Summer Arts Festival (see Special Events) The Royal National Eisteddfod (tel: (017) 4581 8900; website: www.eisteddfod.org.uk), the largest annual festival of competitive music making and poetry writing in Europe, takes place alternately in North and South Wales in early August each year. Literary Notes The most famous writers from Cardiff are probably Roald Dahl, born in Llandaff in 1916, whose autobiography Boy (1984) touches upon his early years in the city, and Ken Follett, the best-selling writer of thrillers and historical novels, who was also born in the city. Dannie Abse was also born in Cardiff, as the title of his autobiography, There Was a Young Man from Cardiff (1991), suggests. Novels set in Cardiff city include River Out of Eden (1951) by Jack Jones, Glass Shot (1991) by Duncan Bush and Cardiff Dead (2000) by John Williams. The late R S Thomas, one of Wales’ greatest poets, was born in the city, although his later poems and were generally centred elsewhere. The poets Peter Finch, who penned Useful (1997) and Food (2001) and Gwyneth Lewis, author of Zero Gravity (1998), both hail from Cardiff. |
||
