Gwenno: Album in Cornish nominated for Mercury Prize
A singer-songwriter has been nominated for a Mercury Prize for an album sung almost entirely in Cornish.
Gwenno Saunders has been nominated for her third album Tresor – with lyrics in the language she learned as a child from her father, a poet, Tim Saunders.
She has been nominated alongside artists such as Harry Styles, Sam Fender and Little Simz.
The artist, from Cardiff, said this was the first non-English language album to be nominated for a Mercury Prize.
The prize has previously gone to acts like Pulp, PJ Harvey, Dizzee Rascal and the Arctic Monkeys.The performer, known as Gwenno, said: “We first found out on Friday, I’d been missing loads of calls from my manager, and I was actually quite worried, because you never know when you get a phone call like that if something terrible has happened.
“Then we found out in our living room, which is where we made the record.
“Do you know what’s brilliant as well, and kind of bonkers at the same time, it’s the first non-English language album to be nominated, and it’s definitely the first Cornish language one, so how fantastic that so many more people are going to hear the language.”
She added: “I’m just excited about that, because any opportunity I get really to have that chat is always fantastic.”
Gwenno previously won the Welsh Music Prize for her Welsh-language debut, Y Dydd Olaf.
The Cornish language is designated “critically endangered” by the United Nations group Unesco and is recognised as a minority language by the Council of Europe.
The winner of the 2022 Mercury Prize will be announced on 8 September.