Lleuwen

France

Lleuwen Steffan is a musician from Rhiwlas in the Ogwen Valley in Wales. She sings, writes songs, composes for drama and produces music from her studio in Brittany where she lives with her two children.

Last year she is embarked on a solo tour of 50 Welsh chapels with her project, Tafod Arian (Silver Tongue). This project reintroduces and redefines the lost spiritual music of Wales. These are hymns that were not published in the official hymn books and much like traditional folk songs, their writers and unknown. Lleuwen accidentally came across these hymns in the sound archive of St Fagan folk Museum whilst working on another project in 2012. At first, she used them for her own healing and spiritual practice. During the covid lockdowns she started working on them in her studio and was ecouraged by Elen Elis of the Eisteddfod Festival to share them through performances.

Through the first half of the chapel tour, she has collected other unpublished Welsh folk spirituals that have been shared with her by audience members. As a multi-instumentalist, her presentation of the Welsh hymns is made with electronica as well as more traditional instuments. It is traditional material that sometimes sound more like electronic club tunes.