Dean’s lecture will celebrate the history of the male voice choir movement in Wales which has its origins in religious nonconformity and was accelerated by the growth of the coal mining industry. He will describe how the male voice choirs took Wales by storm during the mid-Victorian era, creating world famous music institutions that created the universal image of the “Land of Song”.

A report of the meeting by Clive Barrett is available to download.

Speaker biography

With almost 30 years’ experience as a chorister, Dean has extensively researched why Wales developed its love of singing and how the fierce competitiveness of choirs occurred with a backdrop of gambling, rivalries and royal commands!

An award-winning journalist, with years of experience as a newspaper editor and broadcaster, Dean is also an accomplished author and Welsh historian. For more than twenty years Dean has regularly appeared on all manner of radio and television programmes, from documentaries and religious shows to news bulletins and chat shows. Dean is based in Llantrisant, South Wales, but travels extensively as a guest speaker.

Dean previously gave a lecture to Llandrindod U3A in October 2017 about the famed Welsh surgeon Dr William Price.

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