GYMANFA GANU:

          Salem Church's free Welsh festival of song is held every year on the Sunday evening of Labor Day weekend; it has been an annual event since 1915.

The tradition can be traced back to the 12th Century in Wales where the singing of hymns in four-part harmony began. It has been an important part of the Venedocia Church's life since about 1915. To hear the grand old hymns sung by several hundred voices is an unforgettable experience. People from several states return each year.

The Gymanfa Ganu is the biggest event of the year in Venedocia. People from all over Ohio and from many other states swell the village to several times its usual population as they pack into the Salem Presbyterian Church to sing in four part harmony. The church thunders with hundreds of voices praising the Lord with English and Welsh language hymns. The front doors of the church are left open and you can hear the singing a mile away to the east. Very few participants actually speak or understand Welsh, but you are given a Welsh hymn book which makes it easy follow along. A choral director and guest soloists, often Welsh natives, are part of the program. The audience acts as the choir. In essence, what happens is that a professional choral director is hired to help the audience entertain itself singing Welsh hymns. 

Here is a description of a Gymanfa Ganu given by an observant first-time gymanfa attendee, Sarah Bryan Miller:

"The Welsh are a nation of singers, and whenever two or three are gathered together they perform in harmony, rarely unison. Singing is a part of the culture....Welsh emigrants to America brought their vocal traditions with them, and even now, the Gymanfa Ganu (pronounced 'gih-MAHN-vuh GAH-nee' and translated as 'gathering for song') is a regular event in any community with a significant Welsh population.

The hymns are not simply sung through at a Gymanfa. The director may pick and choose among the verses; he may designate them for men's or woman's voices; he may order the organist to drop out so that something may be performed a cappella; he may repeat verses, either because they weren't sung enthusiastically enough the first time, or because he likes them and he feels like it. He decides what will be sung in English and what in Welsh. The director works the dynamic levels and the tempi, swelling the sound here, slowing the pace there.

The numbers sung were not all originally Welsh...but they were proudly out of touch with certain trends in modern hymnody....unlike most contemporary hymnals...the music does not patronize the congregation with low-lying melody lines and missing harmonies: If you sing soprano, you'd better have an F; if you don't have an F, you'd better be ready to sing another part. This has the agreeable effect of making the alto line an actual, singable alto line instead of a growly (for a woman) extra tenor part. It challenges the congregation instead of condescending, and it eliminates the boredom of singing all melody, all the time."