Myfanwy Evans Story  1921 - 1970

Myfanwy Evans, born of Welsh parents* in Winnipeg in 1921, found she had inherited the Welsh love of music and singing when she hesitatingly auditioned for a place in her high school chorus, which was preparing a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore. Instead of a chorus role, she was chosen to play the lead role of Buttercup. Her success in that role led to formal vocal and music studies, and before long, she won the highest singing honour in the Winnipeg Music Festival, the coveted Rose Bowl. Subsequently she was featured in the film ‘A City Sings’, produced by the Canadian Film Board and dealing with the Winnipeg Festival, at that time the largest festival of its kind in the world. Soon she was in great demand as a singer and was performing regularly for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation both on local stations and the national network. She made solo appearances with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and later with the Minneapolis Symphony, under the direction of Dmitri Mitropoulos.

 

*Her father, John Evans, died in Winnipeg in 1929, aged 39.

Mrs Ann Evans, who was born in Mold, Flintshire, died in March 1976 in Edmonton, aged 80.

In 1950 she travelled to London for further study and in pursuit of a career in singing. Shortly afterward, she auditioned successfully for the Sadler’s Wells Opera Company and for the British Broadcasting Corporation, but turned down these exciting opportunities in order to return to Canada to be married to William S Story, also of Winnipeg.

After a period in the New York area, the Storys moved in 1956 to Washington DC where Myfanwy became contralto soloist at Westmoreland Congregational Church. In the years that followed, she devoted herself to her husband and their children, Kirk and Marianne, and to her art, always seeming to give first place in her life to both. All who knew her will remember her frequent solos at Westmoreland Church on Sunday mornings and an entire generation of Westmorelanders will cherish the memories of her annual performance at the Christmas Eve Midnight Service. Whenever and wherever Myfanwy sang, she brought joy and gladness. Her warm and opulent voice, delivered by a faultless technique imbued everything she sang with a deep spiritual quality. To everything she sang, whether a Welsh folksong, a Bach aria, or a great song of Brahms, she brought a pervading musical understanding and a natural feeling for the drama inherent in the phrase. Her communication with her audience was total.

Myfanwy’s musical activities were by no means confined exclusively to Westmoreland Church. She appeared on numerous occasions with the Montgomery County Oratorio Society, and was in demand by other groups and churches throughout the greater Washington area. For six seasons she appeared regularly as guest soloist in the Abendmusik Series at the Union United Methodist Church, where her close friend, Peggy Kelley Reinburg, was Organist and Director of Music.

Myfanwy Story died of cancer in 1970 after a long illness. Her friends and family remembered her generosity and kindness, her humility and dignity, her beautiful countenance and her radiant smile, her slight reticence, her gentle manner, her soft word, and the beauty of her spirit.

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The recording on which these liner notes appear reveals a lovely warm and expressive mezzo voice, with a technical assurance equally comfortable in Bach and Handel, and in contemporary selections by Britten and Hovhaness. Had she so chosen, she could surely have been known far beyond the greater Washington area as one of the great voices of the twentieth century.