WORCESTER Festival Choral Society is in the mood to celebrate the 20th century with music.

Its first concert of the season will take place on Saturday November 17 and it will bring “a feast of beautiful 20th century choral music to the city”.

A spokesman added: “On the programme is Ralph Vaughan Williams’s glorious ‘Christmas Cantata’, Hodie (This Day) which has a historic link to Worcester: it was first performed under the baton of Vaughan Williams himself at Worcester Cathedral as part of the Three Choirs Festival in 1954. “The concert also includes Francis Poulenc’s Gloria, one of the most popular classical music works by any French composer. Performing with the 140 members of Worcester Festival Choral Society – many of whom are selected to sing in the annual Three Choirs Festival chorus – will be Worcester Cathedral Choir choristers, acclaimed soloists Susanna Fairbairn (soprano), Tom Robson (tenor) and Alex Ashworth (baritone) and the Meridian Sinfonia. The Society’s new music director, Christopher Allsop, conducts.”

The spokesman said: “In Worcester Festival Choral Society’s other concerts this season, the choir performs Handel’s Messiah on December 8, and Mendelssohn’s epic Elijah on March 23, both in Worcester Cathedral.

Concert tickets: www.worcesterfestivalchoralsociety.org.uk and 01905 611427.