A CHORAL performance in Sherborne will celebrate the works of Shakespeare.

Sherborne Chamber Choir is set to perform A Midsummer Night’s Dream on Saturday in Sherborne Abbey at 7.30pm.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream takes place the night after Midsummer’s Eve and will be a mix of choral settings, songs, instrumental music and readings, showing the huge influence and inspiration that Shakespeare’s words have had on composers through the ages.

The choir will be performing settings mainly by British composers, including Vaughan Williams’s well-known and loved Three Shakespeare Songs and Welsh composer William Mathias’s Shakespeare Songs, along with settings by Herbert Murrill and Charles Wood and the Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi.

Soloists from the choir will also perform songs by some of the great English songwriters: Roger Quilter, Gerald Finzi and Frank Bridge, all of whom produced some of their greatest writing when setting Shakespeare’s words.

Simon Clarkson will be the accompanist and will be performing some suitably Shakespeare inspired organ music. The choir’s musical director Paul Ellis will conduct the performance.

Tickets for the concert are priced from £5 to £16, students under 18 go free, and are available from Sherborne Tourist Information Centre. Call 01935 815341.