AS one of the highlights of the cultural year, the annual Autumn in Malvern Festival draws in hundreds of people from all over Britain.

A celebration of the visual and aural arts, each festival is themed around a country. Art from that country is shown alongside homegrown music, literature and visual art from the United Kingdom over several weekends during September and October.

The festival really is a feather in the cap for Malvern and a great example of the area's cultural diversity. Much of its strength and popularity can be attributed to its artistic director Peter Smith, who has been organising the event since its inception in 1989.

Explaining some of the ethos behind the festival, Mr Smith said: "It shows one the connections that are made (between the two countries), that are sometimes obvious and sometimes less obvious."

Mr Smith organises the festival by himself from his Worcester Road home, a converted barn filled with Malvernia, books and more books. Each year, he painstakingly organises sponsorship, books artists and writes the programme, as well as all the other tasks in between, although a team of volunteers help out during the event itself.

Planning for the following year's event starts in November. Ticket sales for the festival just gone are determined and then Mr Smith draws on his extensive knowledge and research of the arts to determine a new theme.

He said: "I've got one or two files and because I know that my epic series is contrasting nations, when I see an article or programme I put it into my relevant file on that country or composer.

"I tend to have quite a lot of ideas anyway because I'm always thinking ahead about really how to combine events.

"I make the decision about what theme I'm going to pursue and I start ringing up artists in late January, so it's pretty intense from January to March contacting agents. Up to Easter and May I'm then finding sponsorship. There are enormous numbers of emails and the writing of sponsorship packages."

Mr Smith is keen to stress that it is not just the musical and artistic side that is featured at the festival.

"I've tried to show the connection with the great names in literature," he said. "Last year, we featured the First World War poet Siegfried Sassoon, who regarded the Malvern Hills as his spiritual home. The year before we featured Evelyn Waugh."

Other big literary names with Malvern connections are reeled off, including W H Auden and this year's featured British writer, Elizabeth Barrett-Browning.

Each year, talks are held on literature as well as architecture.

"Malvern has a number of churches by very eminent Victorian architects like Walter Tapper and Ninian Comper," said Mr Smith.

Of course, music is one of the main features of the festival. Past visitors to the festival have included Oleg Prokofiev, son of the famous composer Sergei, and current Russian composer Roxanna Panufnick, who was commissioned to write a piece for the festival in 2001.

This year's featured country is Norway, the perfect opportunity for some of the top ensembles in the country to play works by Edward Grieg.

Mr Smith said the festival was about professionals, the highest possibly quality of recitals from some of the UK's best groups. Over the years, the event has played host to the likes of the Academy of St Martin in the Field, Guildhall Strings, Sorrell String Quartet and Britten Sinfonia, as well as the Malvern-based Aldwyn Voices, of which Mr Smith has been director for over 30 years.

On the art side of things, Mr Smith said that Malvern was blessed with the presence of David Prentice, one of the top artists in the country today. He believes that years from now, Mr Prentice will be viewed in the same light as Constable is today.

This year's flagship art event will be a talk on the painter Edvard Munch, entitled What a Scream.

Funding for each event is through sponsorship and ticket sales, which last year amounted to some £25,000. However, Mr Smith said that this year's festival budget would probably be half that, due to reduced cash from sponsors.

"I can't afford to make a mistake," he said. "I have had to stand on my own. If I make a mistake there's nobody there to help me.

"I can't emphasise strongly enough how great my sponsors are. I can't bring those ideas to fruition without having a decent sponsor."

Of being a part of the Malverns Experience, Mr Smith said: "Anything that promotes Malvern and organisations of quality in it is a very, very good thing.

"I do it because I enjoy it and there's a sense of fulfilment. People come up to you at events and they really have got an enormous amount out of it. The arts help us to understand ourselves".