The Arts Interview: Myles Pepper

Jon Gower

In part one of a three-part series, Jon Gower talks to the Fishguard-based silversmith, gallery owner and arts promoter. We begin by looking at twin loves of his life – music and Ireland.

Music of all types has been tremendously important in Myles Pepper’s life, from jazz to blues, hymns to choral works.

“Having been brought up in Newport, Pembs, where the pub at the time was the Golden Lion, which seemed to attract not only great local people with their music, a lot of Welsh hymn singing and male voice work, but also towards the end of the flower power era the likes of Robin Williamson from the Incredible String Band came down. I’d never heard of these people, but the standard of music was so great, and it was
opening up my ears to wider things.”

Myles was also introduced to classical music via his parents’ old gramophone.

“Quite unusually, Fishguard was quite an important venue for international classical musicians and I’m going back before they established the actual music festival. And I think the first great musician I saw in Fishguard School was Paul Tortelier, that wonderful French composer and cellist, and I’ve never forgotten those evenings.”

History

Fishguard has a long history in classical music concert-going, dating back to the 1940s and the annual Fishguard Festival of Music which has run for half a century: ‘There was a lady in Fishguard, Miss Dilys Honor Davis Evans who, along with two others, formed the Pembrokeshire Joint Concert Committee.

“They acquired a Steinway Piano, which in fact is still alive, or, well half alive – it’s a bit battered now – but they had this piano which would go around the county to put on concerts in Haverfordwest and in Pembroke but Fishguard was the most successful venue.

“The school concert hall here was built to a very high standard in the 50s and could seat over 700 people and the stage could take a full symphony orchestra. I remember seeing people like pianist John Lill performing there, doing Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto.”

As a young man Myles left Pembrokeshire to study in Birmingham, taking up jewellery and silversmithing. But in his leisure time music was still a central pleasure.

“I found a record shop in Birmingham where there was a great manager and while I’ve always being very shy,
I managed to bumble out a few notes of songs that I’d heard but didn’t know who’d performed them. And he very soon realised that perhaps there was a big influence from early blues music and so I got introduced to a chap called Jim Simpson who ran Henry’s Blues House in Birmingham.

“I became quite knowledgeable about the blues and then moved to jazz music and then pop music. There followed an introduction to the wider world through music and of course, you know, everybody will say music is an international language.”

Myles himself doesn’t play music, admitting he doesn’t have the co-ordination to play, say, the piano. That hasn’t stopped him from devoting a lot of time to allowing other people to enjoy music: “I’ve spent my adult life being a facilitator. And that’s about wanting people not to miss out on the joy that the arts brings.

“And it’s not just a joy for relaxation. I think it improves people’s quality of life so much that they have a wish to get a deeper understanding. So music and art is much more important than a means to relaxation, period. It still stimulates people in an educative way, whether they realise it or not. So I’ve gone out of my way to provide workshop opportunities for youngsters. I formed something called the Spirit of Youth, offering opportunities to people from five years of age or even younger up to 95 plus.”

Wales and Ireland

Pepper has also commissioned a lot of music by the likes of Welsh and Irish composers such as Gareth Glyn, John Metcalf and Eric Sweeney, as well as jazz pianist Huw Warren.

“I feel Wales, culturally speaking, has got so much more to offer than is being realised. I think we’ve got so much to be proud of and to celebrate which we still fail to do in many, many ways. Yet I’ve taken this interest in Ireland where they actually use their culture to establish themselves internationally and have done for years. They’ve done it very very successfully.”

Pepper’s fascination with Ireland derives partly from his childhood.

“I was brought up on the mountain above Newport in North Pembrokeshire. One or two times a year you could see the Wicklow Hills. I got so fascinated by who was over there, what was over there. And so this led me to develop a project linking with Ireland, under the name Simffoni Mara.

“Simffoni Mara is about life on the edge of the Irish Sea, life on it and life underneath it, on both sides of the water, on a journey from St David’s Head to Holyhead and then from Dun Laoghaire to Cork. And I want to  ultimately create a touring circuit to enable cultural practitioners to at least make part of their living in an area which is so important to them, so inspirational to them, which gives them fire. So I’ve been looking to commission composers who live on those seashores.

“One of the early commissions I gave out through Ysgol Gerdd Ceredigion was for Gareth Glyn, who I admire tremendously. And in fact the first commission that we gave him, he wrote ‘Fluff,’ which Ysgol Gerdd Ceredigion performed and subsequently included in their performance in the inaugural Côr Cymru competition, which they won. More recently we commissioned him to do a 20 minute-long piece for a school girl choir with piano
accompaniment. And that was Caneuon y Tonnau (Songs of the Waves) which brought in aspects of mythology.”

Such early and sea-inspired commissions of Pepper’s were the beneficiaries of European funding: “Back in the early 90s the European Union announced a programme called Interreg. We applied for funding, not just to help us out on what was called the periphery, but also to help our friends and cousins across the water in Ireland.

“I wanted to try and persuade a change of thinking in the part of Pembrokeshire where I live and across the wider West Wales. You don’t have to think it’s the periphery, you’re actually in the centre, because you’ve got Ireland on the other side. We’re closer to Ireland than Cardiff is, for example.

“And it just seems such a logical thing to develop links. And then, you know, the common language of music, and obviously the Welsh language trying to make a comeback and the Irish language trying to make a comeback. It just seemed natural that we would end up commissioning music, some with lyrics, some without, using both languages.’

Collaborations

Such commissions led to life-long collaborations: “I’d already met some of Wales’ greats like Menna Elfyn, who wrote a work called ‘Agoriad,’ and for that she linked with an Irish language poet, Michael Cody and that was successfully performed in St. David’s Cathedral with Ysgol Gerdd Ceredigion, who I’ve worked with for 30 years now, and then performed in Dublin.

“The harpist from Wales was Elinor Bennett which created the north Wales link for us and working with a top Irish harpist called Denise Kelly led to relationships between North Wales and Dublin and then Galeri in Caernarfon came on board. And that’s what the project’s about. I’s not about what I might achieve myself. That doesn’t really come into it. It’s opening up the doors of opportunity.

“I’ve tried to put forward the economic development argument for culture which is huge and you only have to look at two examples – Fishguard where we’re still economically in dire straits and a town like Wexford, which, through culture, has a 52-week economy. Which has helped to connect Wexford with the rest of Ireland and with the rest of the world. There are opportunities there and we’re missing them. And that’s what I feel saddened about.”