Gwilym Gwent

Gwilym Gwent (born William Aubrey Williams on November 28, 1834) was a Welsh-born composer who immigrated in mid-life to the United States. He died on July 3, 1891. Early life William Aubrey Williams was born at Tredegar in 1834, where as a boy he sang in a choir with his uncle. Williams trained as a blacksmith, but as a young man moved to Blaenau Gwent where he became conductor of a local orchestra. He was one of the most popular and prolific composers in Wales in his time, composing “part-songs”, anthems and solos. In 1865, Williams won prizes for two compositions at the Aberystwyth eisteddfod, including a prize for a duet for female voices, and a ten-pound prize for his cantata, “Y Mab Afradlon”. With David Lewis (1828–1908), Williams edited Llwybrau Moliant, a collection of hymn-tunes for use by Welsh Baptists, a volume which contains several hymn-tunes of his own composition. Coal mines and music In 1872, Williams and his wife, Cecilia, emigrated from Wales. They settled at Plymouth, in Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Valley, where (like many other Welsh immigrants) Williams found work in the anthracite coal mines. While working as a blacksmith at the Nottingham Colliery, he wrote musi