The founder conductor of the reborn choir was D T Davies MBE, a musician of great repute throughout South Wales as conductor, adjudicator and accompanist. During his years as MD the Choir grew in number from 13 to 120 choristers in 1973, when it reached the first of many musical peaks in winning the Chief Male Choral competition at the Royal National Eisteddfod at Ruthin. In his honour, the choir instituted the D.T.Davies Award, presented each year to a young musician resident in the Borough.
Since then thechoir has maintained a consistently high standard of performance, taking its music world wide, first under D T Davies, then under Wynford Jones to Bulgaria, Holland and the USA. Radio and television work escalated, and most of the UK's major concert halls were visited.

In 1987 John Samuel took up the position, and under his expert care the Choir continued to extend its repertoire and reach new heights of excellence, with a full diary of concerts, both at home and abroad, and many performances for television and radio. After John's retirement, Annette Moore, who had been the Choir's accomapanist for eighteen years, took over the mantle towards the end of 1998. Annette continued to extend the repertoire, with popular new pieces regularly being added. Annette only agreed to take the post of MD as a favour until a new MD could be found, and in 1999 Gareth Ellis, who had been appointed accompanist when Annette took over as MD, was offered, and accepted, the post of Musical Director.
Gareth brought his own new ideas and repertoire to the Choir, and continued to demand the highest standards of committment and performance from the Choir. When Gareth took over as MD, the post of accompanist again became vacant, but not for long, as it was filled, most ably, by Kim Tilley, who completed the 'New Team'. Unfortunately, due to pressure of work, Kim had to relinquish the post of accompanist, and the post was again most ably filled by Stewart Roberts, who also accepted the post of Associate Musical Director.
In 2002, due to pressure of work, Gareth was unable to continue as Musical Director, and on his resignation in November, Stewart accepted the post. Stewart brings his wealth of both musical and teaching experience to the post, and maintains and strengthens the Choir’s tradition of competition and concert work. In addition, he continues to widen the repertoire of the choir and keeps the choir fresh by continually presenting choristers with new challenges. We look forward to a very successful future under his imaginative direction.
The 'home' calendar is healthily full for this year, although there might still be room to squeeze in an extra concert or two, and the choir is always looking for new concert venues.
Membership of the Choir is happily increasing after a recruitment campaign and we are especially happy to be attracting young members to the ranks.
The ‘Dowlais’ is a touring choir, having performed in Bulgaria, Canada, The U.S.A., Holland, Luxembourg, Italy, Ireland, Northern Cyprus, and France. In the course of one tour to Canada, the Choir represented Wales at the famous Massey Hall in the Toronto International Choral Festival, and this concert was recorded live, and is available on the Choir cd, ‘Live at Massey Hall’.
The Choir's latest venture abroad was to represent Wales in 'La Bretagne Fęte La Saint Patrick', held at the fabulous Palais Omnisports de Bercy in Paris in March 2005, before audiences of 17000 people.
We are already booked to represent Wales again at the even more prestigious Festival Interceltique in Lorient, Brittany, in August, this time over ten days.
The Choir is always looking for new tour venues, and is always open to invitations. Click here for contact details.