LUCAS WILLIAMS

Lucas Williams (1851-1901?) was born in born at Treforest, Wales, and the family moved to Stockton-on-Tees, Durham, England when he was eleven. As a young man, he was a roller in the iron works and learned music at local psalmody classes and by mail through John Curwen’s Sol-Fa College. He formed a Sol-fa choir, winning prizes in several contests. After winning the bass solo at Pwllheli National Eisteddfod, he went to London and studied at the Royal Academy of Music. For a time, he toured the United Kingdom as soloist and briefly operated a studio in Rhys, Wales, but returned to Stockton, living with his widowed mother as the manager of the silica brick works. He was known to have sung the Elijah on eighty-six occasions as of 1896. Various journals report a story about a rivalry between his choir and one from Middlesborough. “One New Year’s Day he was about to journey to that town to compete, but owing to a severe snowstorm he was unable to muster his forces. His jealous rival made an onslaught on the absent choir, which brought forth an appeal from Mr. Williams, and a challenge that he would pick a choir from the audience. This was accepted, and the plucky conductor gathered a force of friends from those present and carried oft the prize, to the delight of the audience and the discomfort and collapse of his antagonist.”

All are mixed chorus; some contain divisi.

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