CARL Orff's perennially popular Carmina Burana is being performed by Malvern Festival Chorus in its last concert of the season at Malvern's Forum.

Full of instantly recognisable tunes and rhythms, Carmina Burana has often had excerpts from it used in TV adverts and in films.

The work is an uninhibited celebration of the pleasures of life, for which Carl Orff used medieval Latin lyrics taken from poems and old Bavarian peasant plays found in a monastery at Benediktburn in Germany.

Part of the work needs a choir of children with their clear treble voices, and Malvern Festival Chorus have invited Malvern Junior Choir, directed by Carol Greene, to join it.

Also taking part is the Cheltenham-based Regency Percussion Ensemble, led by Diggory Seacome, which will play an important part in conveying the incessant rhythmic pulse of Orff's exciting music.

The ensemble recently joined Ledbury and Newent choral societies for their performance of the work at the Ledbury English Festival.

Four well-known soloists - Elizabeth Cragg (soprano), William Towers (alto), Stephen Davis (tenor) and Niall Hoskin (baritone) - are performing, along with pianists Ross Williams and Jonathan Higgins, who is principal pianist with the Royal Ballet.

The programme also includes the Leibesleider Waltzes by Brahms, which, in contrast to Orff's music, are light in spirit and talk charmingly about the many moods of love.

The choir will also be singing unaccompanied Tippett's Negro Spirituals from Child of our Time.

The concert is on Saturday, May 31, at 7.30pm. Tickets are £8, £10 and £12, available from the theatre box office on 01684 892277.

Malvern Festival Chorus is on the lookout for singers to join it for a concert later this year.

The choir will be performing J S Bach's B Minor Mass in November and needs extra voices to do the work justice.

Anyone interested should call Marion Couston on 01684 310378 or Rachel Neild on 01684 575175.