NEW work to welcome the spring from composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad will be performed at St James Church, Chipping Campden on Saturday, March 14.

The concert The Tree of Life will feature Opus Anglicanum, five men singing unaccompanied and a narrator who perform traditional song and Gregorian chant.

Schubert Der Lindenbaum, Elizabeth Poston Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, Adrian Willaert’s five-part O Crux splendidior and the first performance of the new

work commissioned from Cheryl Frances-Hoad In the crypt of the wood.

Reader Zeb Soanes, often to be heard on BBC Radio 4, knits the music together with the words of Thomas Traherne, Charles Causley, Ruth Pitter, and the magisterial Anglo-Saxon Dream of the Rood.

The second part of the concert, in conjunction with Richard Stephens, is the plainchant Vespers of the Virgin Mary.

Marcel Dupré’s Les Vêpres de la Vierge Op. 18 is in the centuries old tradition of the organist replacing the choir at certain points of the liturgy with improvisations on the plainchant.

They will perform the entire liturgical service of Vespers for the Virgin Mary, including Dupré’s 15 organ interpolated ‘versets’ on the plainchant, played by Richard Stephens.

Richard studied in Paris with Marie-Claire Alain, and his prowess in the French tradition which she embodied equals his performance of Bach.

Opus Anglicanum return to Campden after recent triumphs at Three Choirs Festival with The Song of Angels, and at Campden itself in December with Mediaeval Carols and Figgy Pudding.

Tickets cost £10 at the door and concert begins at 6pm.