Eisteddfod

Prifardd Robin Owain in the bardic chair, 1991

The National Eisteddfod of Wales, Mold 2007

The most important is the National Eisteddfod of Wales, the largest festival of competitive music and poetry in Europe. Its eight days of competitions and performances, entirely in the Welsh language, are staged annually in the first week of August in varying locations that usually alternate between north and south Wales.[3] Competitors typically number 6,000 or more; overall attendances generally exceed 150,000 visitors.[4]

Another important eisteddfod in the calendar is "Eisteddfod Yr Urdd" or the Youth Eisteddfod. Organised by Urdd Gobaith Cymru, it involves Welsh children from nursery age to 25 in a week of competition in singing, recitation, dancing, acting and musicianship during the summer half-term school holiday. The event is claimed to be Europe's premier youth arts festival.[5] Regional heats are held in advance and, as with the National Eisteddfod, the Urdd Eisteddfod is held in a different location each year. With the establishment of the Urdd headquarters in the Wales Millennium Centre, the eisteddfod will return to Cardiff every four years.

The International Eisteddfod is held annually in Llangollen, Denbighshire, each year in July. Choirs, singing groups, folk dancers and other groups attend from all over the world, sharing their national folk traditions in one of the world's great festivals of the arts. It was set up in 1947 and begins with a message of peace. In 2004, it was (unsuccessfully) nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Terry Waite, who has been actively involved with the eisteddfod.

Smaller-scale local eisteddfodau are held throughout Wales. One of the best known is the Maes Garmon Eisteddfod, Mold (Welsh: Eisteddfod Ysgol Maes Garmon, Wyddgrug). Schools hold eisteddfodau as competitions within the school; a popular date for this is Saint David's Day.

There are some Celtic-language-specific cultural festivals similar to eisteddfodau.

Cornwall

In Cornwall, an analogous event is known as Esethvos Kernowcode: cor promoted to code: kw (Cornish for "Eisteddfod of Cornwall") and is connected with Gorseth Kernow.

Scotland

The Scottish Gaelic Mod and the Breton Kan ar Bobl also have similarities to an eisteddfod.

In Ireland, Seachtain na Gaeilge is similar to an eisteddfod; it celebrates Irish music and culture and promotes the use of the Irish language. The Fleadh Cheoil is an annual traditional music festival that takes place in the same town for a few years in a row, then moving on to another area of the country in an effort to include all localities in the celebration.

Eisteddfodau are held across the UK, although in most cases any explicit link to Welsh culture has been lost (beyond the use of the name for an arts festival or competition).

In 1897 a Forest of Dean Eisteddfod, reportedly a choral competition, was founded at Cinderford.[7] This annual event was still running in the 1940s.[8]

In the Methodist Church and other non-conformist denominations in England, youth cultural festivals are sometimes called eisteddfod. The Kettering and District Eisteddfod, for example, was founded in the Northamptonshire town by members of the Sunday School Union and still runs every March.[9]

For many years Teignmouth Grammar School in Teignmouth, Devon, held an eisteddfod of art, music and drama competitions in the Easter term.[10]

The Bristol Festival of Music, Speech and Drama was founded in 1903 as the Bristol Eisteddfod;[11] the name still survives in the Bristol Dance Eisteddfod.[12]

The Teesside International Eisteddfod (Intertie) ran from 1966 to 1978.

The eisteddfod idea has been taken up by non-Welsh speakers in the Channel Islands, particularly for the preservation of the local dialects Jèrriais and Guernésiais, and is called such. See Jersey Eisteddfod.

Eisteddfodau have been held since the initial Welsh settlement in Argentina in the late 19th century. Competitions nowadays are bilingual, in Welsh and Spanish, and include poetry and prose, translations (Welsh, Spanish, English, Italian, and French), musical performances, arts, folk dances, photography and video among others. A youth eisteddfod is held in Gaiman every September, and the main Chubut Eisteddfod is held in Trelew in October. An annual eisteddfod is also held in Trevelin, in the Andes and in Puerto Madryn on the coast.[13]

Eisteddfods (Australian plural) have also been adopted into Australian culture. Much like the Welsh original, eisteddfods are competitions that involve testing individuals in singing, dancing, acting and musicianship. The Royal South Street Eisteddfod in Ballarat has been running since 1891.[14] At least 20 years earlier, as described in the diaries of Joseph Jenkins, Ballarat's Welsh community was conducting an annual eisteddfod each St David's Day (1 March). The Sydney Eisteddfod was first held in 1933[15] and offers some 400 events across all performing arts, catering to 30,000 performers annually. Modern equivalents in Australia are competitions reserved for schoolchildren, though many have open sections where anyone (including professionals) may participate and compete. Typically, a prize may be a scholarship to pursue a further career. Many young Australian actors and dancers participate regularly in the various competitions scheduled throughout the year. The WA Performing Arts Eisteddfod began in 1958 as the Bunbury Music Festival.[16] The Gold Coast Eisteddfod in Queensland began in 1982 and is held annually in August and September. The 2018 eisteddfod attracted over 60,000 competitors.[17] Many other communities host eisteddfods, including Alice Springs, Darwin, Brisbane, Hobart and Melbourne.

A number of international performing arts competitions in South Africa are called eisteddfods, such as the Tygerberg International Eisteddfod and the Pretoria Eisteddfod (first held in 1923). The word "eisteddfod" is sometimes also used by schools for ordinary cultural festivals, even if only one school's students participate.

Moving first as religious dissenters and then as industrial workers, many thousands of Welsh people emigrated to America from the 17th century. By 1851, Y Drych ("The Mirror") was just the latest of a number of Welsh-language newspapers, and in 1872 Hanes Cymry America ("A history of the Welsh in America") by R.D. Thomas attempted to catalogue all of the Welsh communities of the United States. Eisteddfods in North America are thought to have started in the 1830s,[18] though the earliest documented examples date from the 1850s.

Competitive eisteddfod were held during the American Civil War, with themes including George Washington, patriotism and Jefferson Davis.[19]

The largest U.S. eisteddfod was held In 1893 at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago,[20] featuring visiting Welsh choirs invited by The Cymmrodorion Society of Chicago.[21] The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which included a large number of Welsh immigrants, made its first appearance outside of Utah at this event.[22] The eisteddfod idea was retained by some subsequent world's fairs, and helped to link the Welsh Eisteddfod community to its American offshoot. By 1913, a sub-gorsedd of North America with a Vice-Archdruid, Thomas Edwards (bardic name, Cynonfardd), was established at the Pittsburgh Eisteddfod, surviving until 1946.[23]

On 28 July 1915, the International Eisteddfod held in San Francisco at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition drew competing choirs from around the nation, including one mixed group composed of the German members of the Metropolitan Opera Chorus from New York. The tightly-rehearsed, all-male Orpheus Club of Los Angeles was judged the winner and was awarded $3,000.[24]

In 1926, the Pasadena Playhouse in California, held a competitive eisteddfod of one-act plays by local authors that subsequently evolved into an annual Summer One-Act Play Festival.

Some smaller, regional eisteddfodau have deep historical roots. These include the Cynonfardd Eisteddfod in Edwardsville, Pennsylvania, which is the longest running eisteddfod outside Wales with its 128th appearance in 2017[25] at the Dr. Edwards Memorial Church. The Jackson School Eisteddfod in Jackson, Ohio, is the result of an historically strong Welsh business community, who funded the Southern Ohio Eisteddfod Association and a 4,000-seat auditorium that was the only dedicated eisteddfod venue in the United States. In 1930, the hall hosted the Grand National Eisteddfod. While economic decline halted the adult events, a youth festival, founded in 1924, still runs today, with support from the Madog Center for Welsh Studies at University of Rio Grande.[26][27]

In the 21st century the Internet and social media helped new eisteddfodau to spring up. The West Coast Eisteddfod (originally the Left Coast Eisteddfod) was founded by Welsh-American social network AmeriCymru and the non-profit Portland, Oregon, Meriwether Lewis Memorial Eisteddfod Foundation in 2009.[28] The 2011 event was co-curated by Lorin Morgan-Richards and held at the Barnsdall Art Park in Los Angeles, the site of Welsh-American architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House, near Griffith Park, founded by Welsh-American philanthropist Griffith J. Griffith.[29][30] AmeriCymru hosts an annual online eisteddfod.[31]

Welsh Heritage Week[32] and Cwrs Cymraeg,[33] two ambulatory Welsh language and culture courses held annually, usually in the United States, also each feature a mini-eisteddfod. The North American Festival of Wales held by the Welsh North American Association also includes an eisteddfod.[34]