Musical concert

Mezzo soprano Rebecca Chellappah and pianist Olwen Kirkham will perform a concert of old American songs at Westbury Park Methodist Church on August 17.

Tickets for the event, which begins at 3pm, are £10 each, cash on the door.

The songs date back to 1950, when composer Benjamin Britten and tenor Peter Pears commissioned Aaron Copland to arrange a set of traditional American folk songs that they could perform at the Aldeburgh Festival that year with Britten at the piano.

Copland obliged with five songs scored for voice and piano: The Boatmen’s Dance, The Dodger, Long Time Ago, Simple Gifts and I Bought Me a Cat.

Copland wrote a second set of songs in 1952, of which two, The Little Horses, and At the River, will also be performed.