13 April 2011

  A revealing S4C documentary on four heady months in the life of Britain’s best-known choir Only Men Aloud was one of the first award-winners at the 2011 Celtic Media Festival in Stornoway, Scotland last night (Wednesday 13 April).

The hour-long programme Only Men Aloud – O Dredegar Newydd i Efrog Newydd (Only Men Aloud – From New Tredegar to New York), a Boomerang+ production, won top prize in the Arts category.

The documentary follows the 20-strong male voice choir and its charismatic musical director Tim Rhys-Evans as their remarkable rise to world fame continues. It shows the choir celebrating their tenth anniversary by returning to Tim Rhys-Evans’ home town of New Tredegar for a celebratory concert. They later flew to New York in a hectic promotional drive and travelled to London for the Classic Brits Award, after being nominated in the NS&I Album of the Year award category.

The Cardiff-based choir exploded into the music scene in 2008 by winning the BBC’s choir competition, Last Choir Standing.

Meirion Davies, S4C Director of Commissioning, said, “Congratulations to the production company, Tim Rhys-Evans and the choir on a hugely entertaining documentary which illustrates the camaraderie, talents and pressures of a creative ensemble as they progress on their career path.”

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