CELEBRATING the anniversaries of two composers and the artistic heritage of both Malvern and the USA, the Autumn in Malvern Festival returns in September.

An exciting programme of events, from music to exhibitions and talks, has been announced and tickets are now on sale.

Several performances will pay tribute to the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth in Salzburg in 1756 and 100th anniversary of Shostakovitch's birth in St Petersburg in 1906.

The St Petersburg String Quartet, one of the top six quartets worldwide, will perform works by both composers in Great Malvern Priory on Sunday, October 15 at 3pm.

Festival founder and artistic director Peter Smith said: "We're very fortunate to be able to bring such a famous quartet to Malvern."

In another coup for the festival, tenor Nathan Vale, winner of the prestigious Handel Singing Competition 2006, performs at an English song recital in the priory on Sunday, October 8 at 3pm.

Work by contemporary composers Elaine Hugh-Jones from Malvern and Ian Venables from Worcester also features in this concert, plus a world premiere of Be Still My Heart, Jamie Brown's setting of Robert Housman's poem.

Local connections celebrated at this year's festival include the link between the area and war poet Siegfried Sassoon.

Sassoon stayed at the Wyche every year when he visited the Three Choirs Festival and the nuns at Stanbrook Abbey.

Novelist and biographer Max Egremont gives a talk on Sassoon's war at 2.30pm on Sunday, October 7, in Ledbury's Market Theatre.

On Saturday and Sunday, October 7 and 8, at 6pm there is a rare chance to hear the Stanbrook Abbey nuns perform vespers, the evening monastic office, before they depart for their new monastery in North Yorkshire.

The abbey is hosting an exhibition of fine printing from its renowned press, which printed Sassoon's The Path to Peace, on festival Saturdays and Sundays from 4.30pm to 5.45pm.

Visitors from across the US performing at the festival include celebrity organist Carlo Curley, who will play a programme including Bach and Mozart in Great Malvern Priory on Saturday, October 7 at 7.30pm.

Rowena Edlin-White will mark the 150th anniversary of a US children's author with her talk on Kate Douglas Wiggin on Friday, October 20 at 7.30pm in Malvern Library.

Kate Douglas Wiggin, who penned the classic children's novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, wrote her best-seller Penelope's Experiences in England after visiting Malvern.

Another event with a US theme, designed to celebrate the library's refurbishment, is an exhibition of images by photograper Walker Evans, taken in the years of the Great American Depression. This runs from September 29 to October 18.

Other events at this year's festival include the Royal Northern College of Music String Orchestra, who are returning by popular demand to perform at the opening concert at Malvern College on Saturday, September 30 at 7.30pm.

The Aldwyn Voices perform in the priory on Saturday, October 14 at 3pm, while a Home and Food Festival takes place in the Robson Ward courtyard and showroom, Belle Vue Terrace, Malvern, from 10am to 4pm on the the same day.

The festival runs from September 30 to October 14. Full programmes are available in libraries and tourist information centres. To book tickets, call 01684 892277.