The Gustav Holst Birthday Concert has become a regular fixture in Cheltenham’s musical calendar, and audience members who attend this year’s performance are in for a treat as they will be the first to hear songs written by Holst that haven’t been performed in public before.

Holst, born in Cheltenham in 1874, wrote the legendary ‘The Planets’, one of the most well-known pieces of classical music ever written. Every year the Holst Birthplace Museum pay tribute to Cheltenham’s most famous son by holding a celebratory concert in his honour.

This year’s concert takes place on Saturday 29th September at St Andrew’s Church in Cheltenham. The Cheltenham Choral Society, who are celebrating their 80th anniversary this year, will be joined on stage by James Gilchrist (tenor) and John Wright (piano), with Ian Higginson conducting the concert.

Renowned tenor James Gilchrist, a regular performer at the concert, says this year’s event will take on extra significance, with some of Holst’s songs being performed for the very first time.

He said: “It’s going to be a fantastic occasion. I’ve taken part in this concert before, but this year’s concert is going to be particularly special as we’ve discovered some of Gustav Holst’s songs that he wrote that have never been published, so this will be the first time they’ve been heard.

“John Wright – who runs the Charlton Kings Choral Society and will be playing piano at the concert – has done a tremendous amount of work on making sure that we can actually read the music and perform the works. We had a session a couple of weeks ago where we read through the pieces for the first time, it was so exciting.

“Holst isn’t really known as a writer of songs, if you talk to people about him they’ll often mention his symphonies. He wrote quite a lot of songs though and many of them are very good. Some of the songs written by Holst have never been heard in public, it’s tremendously exciting to be able to be involved in such a momentous concert.

“The Cheltenham Choral Society are an extremely talented group of singers, I’ve had the pleasure of performing with them many times before.

“We’re also doing a couple of fantastic pieces of work by Ralph Vaughan Williams, including the wonderful ‘Songs of Travel’ which I know incredibly well. It’s a wonderful piece of music, drawn from a volume of Robert Louis Stevenson poems of the same name.

“The piece tells the story of a man who leaves behind everything he knows and strides out into the world to try and find his place. In many ways it’s similar to some of the German romantic song cycles by Schubert and Schumann.”

The concert gets underway at 7:30pm and there will be a chance for the audience to enjoy music from Mozart and Bach as well as the songs from Holst and Vaughan Williams.