News from one of our members
A new album by Minneapolis composer David Evan Thomas was released on the Centaur label on September 1, 2023. Transformations: Music of David Evan Thomas presents the composer’s solo piano music for the first time on recording, which features the elegant virtuosity of Sonja Thompson, beloved Twin Cities performer.
This Centaur recording (CRC 4028) will stream on all major platforms, including the Naxos Music Library. It will be available for download on Apple Music and Amazon . It will also be available for purchase online from the composer’s web site: davidevanthomas.com, where the $20 price includes tax, shipping and handling.
Would you like to take a class? Our friends at Celtic Junction offer classes on Celtic topics. Check them out at https://celticjunction.org/college/
The Great Plains Welsh Heritage Project is offering books on Welsh American history for research and geneaology. You pay only for shipping.
Early History of the Welsh in the Proscairon District of Wisconsin
History of the Welsh in Minnesota
Hanes Cyrmy America (1872) A History of the Welsh in America
All are translated by Martha Davies or Phillip and Martha Davies. If interested, contact gcolgrove@neb.rr.com
Video of a schoolhouse in Wymore, Nebraska for Welsh-American students
The St. David's Society of Minnesota was formed to celebrate the heritage and culture of the Welsh immigrants to Minnesota. To these ends, St. David's Society members celebrate and cultivate all things Welsh - in literature, history, music, dance, art or ideas, traditional and contemporary.
Saturday, April 6, 2024, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm on Zoom
The Long Field, by Pamela Petro (Part 2), Little Roller Books, 2023 [Amazon: Hardcover $27.99; Kindle $18.99]
In February, the book club discussed Part 1 of the book. In April, we will be discuss Part 2. Pamela Petro will be joining us on Zoom!
Pamela Petro is also the author of Travels in an Old Tongue, which the bookclub read a number of years ago. She is scheduled to present this new book at the North American Festival of Wales this fall where she will do a reading, and also a seminar.
This memoir, which is on the Wales Book of the Year Shortlist, is the best description of “hiraeth” I have read. Hiraeth is a difficult word to translate; it is “like the bone- deep longing felt for something, a home, a lover, a
language, your younger self - that you left behind.”
Petro blends hiraeth stories of Wales with the hiraeth she has experienced as a gay woman; as the survivor of a train crash; as the daughter of a parent with dementia. She gives to the reader radical new meanings of technology, ancestry, minorities, and the environment. She takes us on a beautiful journey through the landscape and culture of Wales in an exquisitely-written book. Gillian Clark says it well: “Not since Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek have I felt so involved as a reader. This is a beautifully written, un-put-downable book about language, love and being alive here, now.”
With Menna Elfyn, I agree that “Petro writes with passion and precision in a style that is both intimate and profound”. This is one of the most fascinating books I have read in all our years of the bookclub. It is a big book, but worth reading each and every page.
Review 1 from Nation.Cymru, and Review 2 from the New Welsh Review
2023-2024 Book Choices June 1, 2024, Whaling, by Nathan Munday August 3, 2024, Tryweryn: A New Dawn? The Legacy of the Drowning of Capel Celyn, by Dr Wyn Thomas
Sgwrs Cymraeg, Welsh Conversation
Any learners or would-be learners welcome to any or all of these classes. ALL held via Zoom on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays from 10:30am - 12:30pm. Contact conversation facilitator: Laurel Bradshaw, llawryf@yahoo.com for Zoom link and more information.
Our First Member Interview: Ellis Jones! On November 1, 2021, one of our board members, Hywel Roberts, interviewed our long-time member and past president, Ellis Jones. Click hereto read the transcript of the interview. We will eventually create a video of excerpts from this and future interviews.
Did you know the on-line game Wordle was invented by a Welshman? Read about his story here.
Today's Harlech: Our member Ryan Evans has produced a recording of Welsh-Minnesotans singing the folk song Tros Y Garreg (Over the Stone) set to his original electronic music accompaniment. He has also created a website with this music and stories and poems written by and read by our members about their Welsh heritage. (Click on the title above to get to the website.)
History of Wales links: Scott Lloyd, one of our Welsh speakers over Zoom,has generously shared many links to learn abour Welsh history and ancient sites.
Contact us at mailto:stdavidsofmn@gmail.com or visit and "like" our Facebook page to learn more about the Welsh and Wales at local, national, and international levels: Go to facebook
