Paul Mealor’s Aberfan requiem marks 60th anniversary — SkimNews
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- Aberfan: From Darkness to Light is Paul Mealor’s new choral requiem for the disaster’s 60th anniversary, spanning 40 minutes and commemorating the 116 children and 28 adults killed.
- Paul Mealor and librettist Grahame Davies were guided by Aberfan people, who asked the work to invoke hope and renewal while recognizing the tragic past and implicitly addressing the present and future.
- Ynysowen Primary School and Ysgol Gymraeg Rhyd y Grug supplied children’s voices for the first performance at Aberfan Community Centre, where they joined the Ynysowen Male Voice Choir, BBC National Chorus of Wales and an instrumental ensemble.
- Timothy Redmond conducted the second performance, with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales providing the work’s full orchestral weight.
- Mark Lewis Jones narrated a story that neither avoided the horror nor avoided pointing a finger at those who might have prevented the disaster, while remembering the heroic bravery of rescuers and those who perished.
- Aberfan: From Darkness to Light carried different facets across 40 minutes through vibrantly rhythmic, percussive writing without becoming sentimental or maudlin; children’s playful singing felt natural, and one listener said they could not have imagined “such joy.”
- This Moment, Anna Clyne’s work inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh’s calligraphy, opened the concert with meditations on death, life, rain and tears; movements from Haydn and Mozart symphonies and Vaughan Williams’s Toward the Unknown Region, setting Walt Whitman’s poem, extended the program toward spiritual death and rebirth.
Why it matters: For Aberfan people, who guided Paul Mealor and Grahame Davies, the 60th-anniversary work paired recognition of the 116 children and 28 adults killed with an explicit wish for hope and renewal. Local schoolchildren and the BBC National Chorus and Orchestra of Wales joined the commemoration, placing the valley’s present alongside its tragedy and the rescuers’ bravery.
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