Siân
James

Amdani · About

About

Siân James is one of Wales’ best-loved traditional singers — a harpist, pianist and composer whose music grows straight out of the hills of Montgomeryshire.

A native of the mid-Wales village of Llanerfyl in Powys, Siân took part in local eisteddfodau from an early age, playing piano and violin before finding her voice at the harp. She was still a pupil at Llanfair Caereinion High School when she began composing her own songs and arranging traditional Welsh material, and she went on to read music at the University of Wales, Bangor.

Across ten albums — for Sain, BBC Worldwide and her own label, Recordiau Bos, recorded at her home studio in Llanerfyl — she has reimagined the Welsh tradition with a voice of rare purity and warmth. She is also well known for her acting work on Welsh-language television, and she conducts and accompanies Parti Cut Lloi, the celebrated Montgomeryshire men’s choir, with whom she appeared at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C.