Tenby musicians are amongst those from West Wales trying to change the face of music during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has had a serious effect on everyone involved with the arts.

With the closure of theatres and concert halls many professional musicians have nowhere to perform and since March have had their livelihoods taken away from them.

The West End of Wales is a new ‘virtual orchestra’ - a collective of professional musicians from across the West of Wales who are determined to perform to raise awareness of the situation.

Two videos made which were viewed via social media platforms raised over £800 for the charity ‘Help Musicians’ who have been granting hardship grants to those musicians in pressing financial need.

Having realised that the musicians from The West End of Wales were amongst those most in need, the ‘virtual orchestra’ has been registered as a not for profit Community Interest Company and is now raising funds to self fund and provide paid work to its performers.

The latest video, which is a collaboration between the orchestra and the Welsh of the West End (top actors from the London stages), had nearly 100k views via Facebook in less than 48 hours.

The West End of Wales orchestra features three professional musicians from Tenby - Jamie Hutchinson (violin), Lily Whitehurst (violin) and Corey Morris (trumpet) - who are all alumni of Greenhill School and the Pembrokeshire Music Service

The West End of Wales orchestra can be found on social media by using @theweow or #theweow, (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter).

Videos can be found on you tube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heuYoXYdjIA - LET IT GO from Frozen feat. Welsh of the West End

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBKQuXdAEDc - STARS from Les Miserables

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1Wtl9bLaa4 - ALL I ASK OF YOU from Phantom of the Opera

You can check out the website fundraising page at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/the-west-end-of-wales and any enquiries for sponsorship or adverts on our social media videos should be directed to [email protected]