AN Anglesey world-renowned tenor and his soprano wife will headline at a charity concert at Bangor Cathedral.

Gwyn Hughes Jones and Stacey Wheeler will top the bill at the Save the Children’s centenary concert 'There is Hope' at 7pm, on Saturday, May 18.

They will perform arias and popular duets in their role as the charity’s Ambassadors in Wales.

Also appearing are pianist Annette Bryn Parri, from Deiniolen, male-group Trio and Ysgol Gymuned Penisarwaun School Choir.

Gwyn, who is from Llanbedrgoch, is fresh from leading the cast as Riccardo in the Welsh National Opera’s production of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera performed recently at Venue Cymru.

The concert will feature a once in a lifetime opportunity to hear a live performance of the song ‘There is Hope’ which has been composed especially for the event by Annette Bryn Parri and her husband, Gwyn Parri. The song will be available on CD which will be sold during the concert.

The concert is being held on the eve of the day when Save the Children was founded on May 19, 1919 at the Royal Albert Hall by two sisters from Shropshire, Eglantyne Jebb and Dorothy Buxton.

Incensed by images she had seen of starving children in Germany and Austria following the First World War, Eglantyne Jebb went on to defend every child’s rights – whoever they are, wherever they are – by writing the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1924 which led to the creation of the United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child in 1989.

Save the Children started working in Wales in the 1930s helping families in the south Wales valleys during the Great Depression by opening open air nurseries in the Brynmawr and Dowlais communities in Merthyr Tydfil. The charity was also the first to offer free milk in schools before it became UK Government policy in the 1940s.

Today, Save the Children works in 120 countries around the world including here in Wales, helping families and children to thrive in their vital early years.

Gwyn Hughes Jones and his wife Stacey Wheeler have been the charity’s Ambassadors in Wales since 2012 and have performed in many awareness raising and fundraising concerts. Stacey worked for the charity for a period, leading a programme which built strong relationships between parents, schools and communities for the benefit of the child. Being Ambassadors also gives them a rare opportunity to perform together during a busy working schedule performing and travelling the world with Opera companies.

Gwyn Hughes Jones said: “We are really looking forward to the concert and to performing together as the opportunity doesn’t often arise. It is part of one’s social conscience to want as many children and young people as possible to have the opportunity to grow up happy, healthy and safe. And it is important that we realise our responsibility to be part of the answer to make this world a better place for them to live in.”

Stacey added: “I have seen the great work the charity does here in Wales and I was inspired. It is lovely to be able to use our voices as singers and Ambassadors to raise money and awareness of the opportunities Save the Children gives children here in Wales and abroad to reach their full potential.”

Louise Davies, Head of Save the Children – Wales said: “We are starting Save the Children’s centenary celebrations on a high note with a spectacular concert featuring artists of such a high calibre. It promises to be an evening of music to remember and we are extremely grateful to them both and all the other artists for raising awareness and funds towards the charity’s work. We are also very grateful to our volunteers from the Save the Children Branch in Anglesey for their assistance in organising the evening.

“With everything that’s happening in the world today it would be easy to look pessimistically to the future. But all the work the charity successfully achieves across the world defending children’s rights is heartening. As the song says, ‘There is Hope’.”

Tickets are £20 and £5 for children from Palas Print, Caernarfon, Awen Menai, Menai Bridge, Bys a Bawd, Llanrwst. Or contact: 02920 803253/ 07900214959.