MALVERN-based choir the Hills Singers is making final preparations for a six-day tour to twin town Marianske Lazne.

The choir is travelling to the Czech Republic between Thursday, July 12, and Tuesday, July 17, to take part in the town’s summer festival.

The Malvern visitors will be hosted by the Fontana Choir of Marianske Lazne and will perform two evening concerts, in the Chopin Concert Hall and Town Theatre.

They will also sing the Monteverdi Mass during the Sunday service at the Church of the Assumption, and sing twice outdoors in public in the world-famous Kolonada, between performances of the town’s singing fountain.

The performances will feature British music from Byrd to the Beatles and including Elgar; works by Czech and other continental composers will also be featured.

Malvern hosted the 2015 visit of the Canzona Childrens’ Choir from the Czech town’s Frederyk Chopin Music School.

The Hills Singers are making the first reciprocal visit by a Malvern choir at the invitation of mayor Martin Kalina, an event eagerly anticipated by the music-loving Czech townspeople.

The visit has been arranged in conjunction with Malvern Community Partnership and facilitated by Dr Petr Somol who, on a recent visit to Malvern, attended a rehearsal of the Hills Singers to present them with a poster he had designed for the visit.

The tour was preceded by concerts at St Andrew’s Church, Poolbrook and the Elgar Birthplace Museum at Lower Broadheath, near Worcester, where audiences heard some of the works to be performed in Marianske Lazne.