BELLS at a rural Herefordshire church will chime to a specially commissioned piece of music in their celebration at Concerts for Craswall’s next recital.

The bell ringers at St Michael’s, Michaelchurch Escley, are busy practising for the special concert which takes place on Saturday, March 23 and opens with ‘The Bells a Winter Night.’

‘Hidden’ in the bell tower with them will be The Hexad Singers, a group of young male singers from Oxford and Cambridge Universities, including Daniel Gethin, 23, from Dorstone, who, after hearing about the church’s new sixth bell, a treble, inscribed ‘The Michaelchurch Great War Memorial Bell’, commissioned the song.

It has been composed by Anna Semple, 21, who Daniel met whilst studying at Cambridge.

“It’s a celebration of the bells as well as music in churches. When I asked Anna to write it, the primary thought was the bells. She looked into poems; where there could be a harmony in what was spoken and heard,” said Daniel.

As a result, the lyrics for the piece are based on American writer Emily Dickinson’s poem ‘Peace is a Fiction of our Faith’ and the line ‘The Bells a Winter Night’.

With the ringers and singers all in the bell chamber at the start of the piece, the song, like others in the programme, is designed to give the audience a spacial experience too.

The Hexad singers emerge half way through the song, their singing and the chiming of the bells an unusual intermingling as they proceed through the church.

One of the ringers is musician and Concerts for Craswall trustee, Cathy Nelson. She’s also Daniel’s mum and a bell ringer at Dorstone, where similarly a project has seen a sixth church bell made, which was rung for the first time on Friday, March 1.

“Daniel had the very interesting idea to commission a piece to start his programme which begins with the bells. The composer has pitched the voices to have the same pitch as the bells.

“Bells often bring links between villages. There will be a mix of ringers from Michaelchurch and Dorstone,” said Cathy.

The concert begins at 5pm and will showcase gems from the English Renaissance for men’s voices, contrasting with 20th and 21st Century works.

The richly textured motets of William Byrd form the backbone and there’s also music from Cornysh, Debussy and Poulenc.

The evening follows a Lenten theme; darkness to light, despair to joy.

For tickets, visit concertsforcraswall.org, e-mail: [email protected] or tel: 01981 510112.