Tom Jones International

Is It Faenol or will Tom’s No 1 Choice be Katherine? Terfel and Jenkins compete to get Welsh superstar to perform

Mar 25 2006 — Claire Hill, Western Mail

THE race is now on between Wales’ two classical singing sensations to win the ultimate prize — Tom Jones.

World famous bass baritone Bryn Terfel has often spoken of his ambition to persuade “Jones the Voice” to perform at his four-day Faenol Festival in North Wales.

But today the world’s fastest-selling female opera star, Katherine Jenkins, has entered the fray by announcing she wants to hold a two-day summer musical extravaganza of her own in South Wales.

Just which one would Tom — the 65-year-old from Pontypridd, put on a pedestal for his legendary singing prowess — choose?

Katherine’s festival, which she hopes will first take place in 2007, marks a change in direction for the mezzo soprano from Neath. She once said, “My three ambitions have always been to sing at the Millennium Stadium and the Sydney Opera House, and to get to Number One in the classical charts” and she has now achieved all three within two years of bursting on to the music scene.

Her first-ever festival underlines her long-held desire to now give something back to her home nation.

A source close to Katherine said, “This has been planned for over a year. There’s been a demand for this. The four-day Faenol Festival has been very successful up north and there is definitely a demand for a big classical festival in South Wales. People have been asking her for this.”

Organisers are keeping tight-lipped about the details, but the Western Mail can reveal they are looking at several sites along the M4 corridor.

The contenders could be:

A hometown base for Katherine at Margam Park, the stately home estate between Cardiff and Swansea;

Swansea’s Singleton Park, which hosts the annual dance festival Escape in the Park, or

Cardiff’s Coopers Field, which hosts the capital’s biggest outdoor events next to the city centre castle.

That decision depends on whether Katherine wants to copy the Faenol, which takes place on an estate near Bangor, and appeal to the blanket and hamper audiences, or whether an urban setting would pull more people.

The line-up also remains under wraps but organisers are confident it will feature a star-studded cast of international singers and performers.

Brian Lane, Katherine’s manager, who is seen as very well connected in the music world, said last night, “We want to present a festival that extends the festivalgoer’s experience to all aspects of the arts and we have some fan-tastic ideas in development.

“We’ve already been planning this for over a year now and although we can’t say too much at this stage we’ll have more to tell everyone in the coming weeks and months as this all starts to come to fruition.”

Katherine, who sang Happy Birthday to Tom Jones at his Welsh homecoming gig last May, could use her charms to ask some of the bigger Welsh legends to perform at her festival. That has triggered speculation Tom would be a natural choice.

But Katherine, 25, would be up against Bryn, who has always encouraged all forms of music — from Westlife and Jamie Cullum to Andrea Bocelli and Katherine herself — to perform at Faenol, which is now in its seventh year.

It is no secret the burly opera star, last seen in Wales last month at the Wales Millennium Centre in the title role of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman for Welsh National Opera, has coveted a performance from Tom.

Terfel has said, “I’ve been dreaming, for years now, of Tom headlining the night where it’s just Welsh music, which we call Tan y Ddraig (Dragon’s Fire). My dream would be to get all these really great Welsh acts from the ’70s together and then have Thomas come out and sing with them.”

Now Bryn is waiting for the It’s Not Unusual singer to ask him to perform because Tom never returns his calls. But he has won one big coup — Dame Shirley Bassey has agreed to headline one of the Faenol nights this August.

Name: Katherine Jenkins

Age: 25 From: Neath Albums: Premiere and Second Nature Facts: Second Nature monopolised the number one spot for almost nine months and won the singer a Classical Brit award as Album of the Year. She is the biggest-selling female classical artist ever in the history of classical music having sold over 1.5 million records in barely two years. Also the Forces’ Sweetheart. Performed at: VE Day celebration in Trafalgar Square, Live8 concerts in Berlin and London, Faenol Festival, Sydney Opera House, Millennium Stadium and the Royal Albert Hall. Background: Was Welsh Choirgirl of the Year. She gained an Honours degree at London’s Royal Academy of Music. But she had to work as a freelance singing teacher in Hertfordshire to fund her postgraduate studies in opera.

Name: Bryn Terfel Age: 40 From: Caernarfon Albums: Everything from classical to folk. Several award-winning CDs featuring German Lieder by Schubert and Schumann to English songs by Vaughan Williams. Plus two albums of show songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe. Facts: He’s been honoured with the Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal performance in 1996, Male Artist of the Year and Album of the Year for the platinum-selling Bryn in the 2004 Classical Brit Awards. Got a CBE in the 2003 New Year Honours. Has performed at: All the major opera houses of the world, with music as diverse as Mozart and Wagner, Puccini and Stravinsky, Verdi and Britten. In 2004 he made his debut as Wotan in Wagner’s Ring Cycle at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and critics said he fulfilled his “operatic destiny”. Most recently he returned to the WNO to headline in The Flying Dutchman. Background: He sang at Eisteddfodau [Welsh music competition] from the age of four. He studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, his first big break coming when he won the major Kathleen Ferrier Award in 1988. The now-famous “battle of the baritones” with Dmitri Hvorostovsky followed at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition the following year.