Ifor Thomas (Tenor) (Pentraeth, Anglesey 1892 - New York 1956)

In 1895 he went to Pentraeth Board School and at the age of 13 became a carpenter with Huw Parry of Pentraeth. He won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London in 1914. He met his wife, Ceridwen, and they moved to Milan, Italy; he sang in the opera houses of Milan, Nice andMonte Carlo. In 1928 he joined the Metropolitan Quartet in New York, USA, with Frances Alda. He worked with the Radio Atwater Kent Company and he sang in two Newark Music Festivals. He recorded several operas for HMV. When his musical career ended in 1933 he became a photographer for Collier's Magazine, his subjects over the next 15 years including Frank Sinatra, Ingrid Bergman, Tommy Dorsey and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the 1940s he took up painting and exhibited in London, New York and a number of colleges in the United States, signing his work as Ifor o Fôn. A patriotic Welshman, he founded the Cymric Society of New York in 1945. Mildred Unfried was his second wife.

Chronology of some appearances

1925 Milano Teatro Alla Scala

1927 Paris Grand Opera

1928 Philadelphia Opera Company

RECORDING FOR SALE

Duophone, London 1925

Pagliacci (Leoncavallo): Vesti la giubba GS 7003 DC 7425