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have announced the appointment of , the highly-successful conductor and composer, as their new Music Director.

Griffiths, 30, is to replace Mervyn Cousins, who left to take a senior post with the Associated Board of Royal Schools of Music.

Eilir Owen Griffiths

A tutor and cultural organiser at University of Wales Trinity Saint David in Carmarthen, Griffiths is also a director for musical theatre productions and a singing teacher, as well as being artistic director of Gŵyl, the university's arts festival.

He is best known in Wales as the musical director of the choirs CF1 and Côr Godre'r Garth with whom he has attained considerable success in competitions and concerts. He conducts the university choir, and is also a highly-regarded composer, his most recent work being a requiem written to celebrate the creation of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. It received its première in June 2011 with Bryn Terfel and Wynne Evans performing together with Eilir's three choirs and the .

Griffiths said: "I am very much looking forward to the challenge of maintaining and advancing the very high standards of the International Eisteddfod, and I am particularly anxious to increase the involvement of children in this great festival."

Eisteddfod chairman Phil Davies said: "We are all very excited at this new appointment of a young man who, while at the heart of the Welsh music scene, has a wide and international outlook which will equip him well for the task of taking the Llangollen Eisteddfod forward to even greater achievements."