HARROGATE Festival Choral Course will return to Ampleforth Abbey on Thursday, August 25.

This will be the fifth time the Abbey has been the setting for this annual event, which this year offers a programme consisting of music by Janacek and Rossini.

Janacek’s sensitive setting of the Lord's Prayer, “Otcenas”, is one of two religious pieces composed by him in 1906 when he was in his early 50s and renowned for his orchestral compositions and the strong melodic overtones of operas such as The Cunning Little Vixen.

Also on the programme will be Rossini’s Petite Messe Solonelle, which is notable for its beauty and originality, and can be seen as having the melodic overtones of the operas of his earlier years for which he is so famous.

Both pieces will be conducted by Thom Meredith, a founder director of the Choral Course, as well as being well known for his work as a fine baritone soloist. His recent performances in Ripon Cathedral include Faure’s Requiem and the première of Patrick Lee’s Sacrifices.

Harrogate Festival Choral are very pleased to welcome back Sarah Ogden (soprano) and Paul Gibson (bass), who will be joined this year by Julianne Young (mezzo soprano) and Nicholas Watts (tenor). The group are also continuing their support of northern trained musicians with instrumentalists Elinor Nicholson (harp) and Jonathan Scott (harmonium) completing the line-up of soloists.

The five-day choral course attracts participants from near and far; this year there are singers from Ampleforth, all around Yorkshire and the rest of the UK, as well as from the Netherlands and Canada.

Tickets for the performance, which starts at 7.30pm, are priced £15 (£12 concessions), and are available at the door or in advance from Elijah Todd Newsagents, Helmsley.