This weekend, celebrations will take place to mark the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of one of Wales’s most famous musicians, John Roberts, Harpist of Wales or ‘Telynor Cymru’. His life and works will be marked with two days of performances, talks and events exploring his life and how he and his family, who lived in Newtown, became one of Wales’s best known musical acts of their day. The celebrations are part of the Gregynog Festival taking place at Gregynog Hall. Born to a Romani mother and a Welsh father in north Wales, Roberts lived in Frolic Street in Newtown for much of his life and is known to have performed at Gregynog Hall during the mid-nineteenth century. He and his family performed at the Bear Hotel in Newtown and also performed on nine triple harps in front of Queen Victoria whilst she was visiting north Wales. In 1848, he won the world harp competition at Abergavenny, as well as the harp prize at the National Eisteddfod in Cardiff in the same year. Roberts put Newtown firmly on the musical map and remains a significant figure within Welsh culture. He was one of the most famous musicians in Victorian Wales and I’m pleased to be able to mark his two-hundredth birthday in the Senedd today.