19 Facts About Guto Puw

Guto Pryderi Puw was born on 1971 and is a Welsh composer, university lecturer and conductor.

Guto Puw is considered to be one of the most prominent Welsh composers of his generation and a key figure in current Welsh music.

Guto Puw has twice been awarded the Composer's Medal at the National Eisteddfod.

Guto Puw's works include pieces for unusual combinations of instruments, such as a tuba quartet or a trio consisting of harp, cello and double-bass, as well as more traditional forces such as solo baritone and piano, choir or orchestra.

Guto Puw was associated with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales as its Resident Composer, the first holder of this title, from 2006 to 2010.

Guto Puw's own Welsh identity is a recurrent theme in his music: some of his pieces set Welsh-language poetry to music and one of his pieces, Reservoirs, is written about the flooding of Welsh valleys to provide water for England.

Guto Puw was awarded with a MMus degree in 1996 and a PhD degree in 2002.

Guto Puw was then awarded an Arts Council of Wales bursary and studied with the composer John Metcalf.

Guto Puw was appointed as a Lecturer in Music at Bangor University in 2006, having previously been a Teaching Fellow in Music from 2004.

Guto Puw was the founding member and conductor for, a Welsh-language choir based in Y Felinheli near Bangor.

Guto Puw has received commissions from BBC Radio 3, the Welsh baritone Jeremy Huw Williams, the Bangor New Music Festival and the North Wales International Music Festival.

Guto Puw was appointed the first Resident Composer with BBC National Orchestra of Wales in 2006 and held this position until 2010.

Guto Puw was a founding member and the Artistic Director of the Bangor Music Festival, a festival for new music in north Wales founded in 2000.

Guto Puw received the Tlws y Cerddor award from the Welsh Music Guild.

Guto Puw has won the Composer's Medal at the National Eisteddfod of Wales twice, winning it first in 1995 for a harp piece, Ffantasia II.

Guto Puw has said that "The second movement is inspired by talkative people who won't let you contribute to a conversation", represented by a repeated row of 13 notes played until "it gets rather unbearable".

Guto Puw had a particular affinity with the topic as his grandfather lost farmland in the Tryweryn flooding.

In 2017 Guto Puw completed his first chamber opera Y Twr based on the play by the Welsh playwright, Gwenlyn Parry and to libretto by Gwyneth Glyn.

Guto Puw said that in the piece "Freedom is granted to the performers to make any subtle facial expressions that add to the musical interpretation".