Carwyn Ellis is a Welsh musician, composer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is known as the frontman of British alternative band Colorama, as a member of The Pretenders and as a long-time collaborator with Edwyn Collins. 

Ellis has also recorded electronic music as Zarelli, releasing an album, Soft Rains in 2015 which featured the voice of Leonard Nimoy narrating the Ray Bradbury short story There Will Come Soft Rains. In 2017 Ellis formed the Welsh folk group Bendith and their self-titled album was nominated for the Welsh Music Prize and went on to win the Welsh Language Album of the Year 2017 award at National Eisteddfod of Wales.

In 2019, Ellis embarked on the first solo project under his own name, Carwyn Ellis & Rio 18. A collaborative project sung in Welsh and recorded mainly in Rio de Janeiro. The album, Joia! was nominated for the Welsh Music Prize. A documentary film on the making of the record, Carwyn Ellis: Ar Y Cei Yn Rio went on to win the Best Welsh language short Film award at the Wales International Documentary Festival.

During lockdown in UK, Ellis released Chaos Wonderland under the Colorama project on 31 July 2020 and the follow-up to 2019’s Welsh Music Prize shortlisted Joia!, Ellis released Carwyn Ellis & Rio 18’s second album Mas on 25 February 2021.

The most recent Rio 18 album ‘Yn Rio’ features the BBC National Orchestra of Wales was released on 22 October 2021, originally performed live and broadcast in March 2021 on BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio 6 Music.

In 2022, Carwyn reocrded and released ‘Across the Water’. After a digital only release earlier in the year, we released a limited run of on LP & CD  with 50% of all proceeds going to the Oasis Centre for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Cardiff, Wales.