59. Ledbury Choral Society

Ledbury Choral Society presents a programme of poetry set to music by British composers. In the centenary year of his death, the choir will perform C.V. Stanford's Songs of the Fleet , a cycle of five settings of poems by Henry Newbolt, for choir and baritone solo, alongside The Bluebird and Farewell, my Joy, from Stanford's opus 119 part-songs, setting the poems of Mary Coleridge. The programme will also include works by Ralph Vaughan Williams - Five Mystical Songs for choir and baritone solo, with texts by the 17th Century priest and poet George Herbert, and Three Elizabethan Songs for a Capella choir, setting the words of Shakespeare and Herbert. The concert will open with a setting by Herbert Howells of a poem by Ursula Vaughan Williams, A Hymn for Saint Cecilia, honouring the patron saint of music. The programme will also feature a new work, specially composed for the occasion, by local musician and accompanist of Ledbury Choral Society, Simon Peberdy.