Lloyd Wins 2013 Principality Building Society Welsh Musical Theater Young Singer Of The Year

As a Welshman, I have always been proud of my nation's musical and cultural heritage. This heritage is deeply rooted in the tradition of male voice choirs and, in the modern era, Wales has become something of a breeding ground for musical theatre talent.

So it was perhaps apt that last night at the Taliesin Arts Centre in Swansea both of these traditions should merge together in the 11th annual final of the Principality Building Society Welsh Musical Theatre Young Singer Of The Year Competition, founded and organized by the prestigious Dunvant Male Choir. Previous winners of the competition have included a number of performers who have gone on to become West End leading ladies and leading men, such as Connie Fisher, Hayley Gallivan and Olivier Award winner David Thaxton.

The evening featured songs from the entire gamut of the musical theatre songbook - from the pens of Sigmund Romberg and Rodgers and Hammerstein through to Stephen Sondheim, Boublil and Schoenberg and Lopez and Marx - performed by the Dunvant Male Choir and the group of young performers eagerly contesting for the coveted title and prize.

Contestants Christopher Hughes, Amelia Friswell, Adam Robert Lewis and Holly-Anna Lloyd each delivered their four-song sets with passion and a high degree of vocal skill in their attempts to impress adjudicators Michael Morwood, Tim Rogers and Clare Hammacott.

While the panel of judges deliberated, the audience were treated to 15 minutes of high quality vocal performances from the 2012 winner of the competition, Michael Rees. The 21-year-old, who is about to graduate from the Guildford School of Acting, reminded everyone why he was such a worthy winner twelve months ago with a varied programme of musical theatre fayre - with songs from Lippa's Wild Party, Kitt and Yorkey's Next To Normal, Stiles and Drewe's Honk, Wildhorn and Knighton's Scarlet Pimpernel and brand new epic Welsh historical musical My Land's Shore - which has music penned by a former winner of the competition (and West End Spamalot star) Kit Orton.

The highly entertaining proceedings - which had been accompanied at every turn by internationally renowned pianist Jeffrey Howard - were drawn to a close by the announcement that 24-year-old Royal Welsh College Of Music and Drama graduate Holly-Anna Lloyd was the winner of the competition.

Holly-Anna, who had earlier shown that she possesses not only a rich and glorious soprano voice but is also a highly gifted actress with great charm and immense stage presence, reaffirmed why she thoroughly deserved the accolade of Welsh Musical Theatre Young Singer of the Year with a scintillating encore of Jenine Tesori and Dick Scanlan's Girl In 14G.

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