Welsh music charity celebrates coastal living in newest project

An inclusive music charity has brought together ten coastal communities around Wales to create original songs, videos, and dances in celebration of their unique culture.

Following the success of their Ffordd Sain project celebrating communities along the A470, Community Music Wales shifted their focus to the coast, exploring Welsh identity in the country’s estuary towns and coastal cities.

With support from the Arts Council of Wales’ ‘Create’ Lottery programme, the Aber i Aber project was created with input from local young people, cultural groups, environmental organisations, and historians.

Over 300 people took part in the creative workshops, producing original music and videos.

Identity and heritage

Aber i Aber set out to explore what it means to be Welsh in these unique areas, delving into identity, heritage, and the cultural significance of the word Aber.

These coastal towns, often bilingual, historically rich, and facing modern challenges such as tourism pressures, housing issues, and environmental concerns, shared a common desire: to have their voices heard and their sense of place recognised.

Community Music Wales is a national arts charity that works to make music participation accessible to everyone, regardless of gender, age, ability, social background or culture. They hold inclusive music workshops, offer training and mentoring, and undertake projects such as Aber i Aber.

Abertawe to Aberteifi

With the project now completed, instalments from the ten participating Abers have been made available on the Community Music Wales site and on their YouTube channel.

In Holywell, CMW and tutor Julie Bulman worked in partnership with mental health charity Kim Inspire to deliver a song writing project with their adults living with different mental health challenges. The project explored life in Holywell, living on the estuary and explored the Welsh identity living close to the border with England to produce their own video and songs.

The majority of the video was filmed in St Winefride’s  Chapel, which is home to St Winefride’s Well, the Holy Well that Holywell was named after.

Hidden history

Elsewhere, Aber i Aber Abertawe explored the hidden history of Swansea’s smuggling past through choir and storytelling. Led by local Swansea musician and workshop facilitator Boyd Erlam, this creative heritage project brought a 17th-century Welsh folktale to life with original music compositions.

Featuring performances by local community groups Aber Taiko, Shiko, and The Singing Armadillos, the project celebrated Swansea’s cultural heritage in a dynamic and immersive way. The programme offered interactive songwriting workshops, giving participants a chance to explore Welsh history and contribute to Swansea’s thriving arts scene.

In Aberteifi, the charity held a bilingual creative songwriting mentorship programme for musicians aged 18+ in collaboration with Mwldan, Cardigan, during autumn 2024. With the help of CMW mentor Rhys Taylor, participants explored themes such as confluence, local history, landscape, and environment.

Local artists with prior songwriting and performance experience were selected to develop their creative practice in a supportive musical community. The programme culminated in a live sharing event at Mwldan in December, showcasing the work created, and celebrating the talent and creativity nurtured throughout the sessions.

You can read about the Aber projects and explore the map showcasing more of the work created by these inspiring communities on the Community Music Wales site.