A unique music festival being held for the eighth year is set to be its biggest yet.

Music@Malling puts contemporary composers alongside classical, jazz, vocal, world and film music in and around historic venues and landscapes of West Malling, and will this year hold 28 such events over 14 days next month.

Running from Sunday, September 16 to Saturday, September 29, includes an appearance by actor Charles Dance OBE, who will narrate readings from Siegfried Sassoon and his rediscovered correspondence as part of commemorations for the Armistice.

One of the world’s leading choirs, Tenebrae, will give a concert marking the anniversary, performing works by Elgar, Stanford, Parry and Taverner while festival founder and composer Thomas Kemp will conduct a programme of British string classics with Chamber Domaine.

More than 1,000 children from 20 local primary schools will take part in The Great Enormo - a 21st Century Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, written by Michael Rosen and set to music by husband and wife team, James Morgan and Juliette Pochin.

The music of composer Debussy will feature in four concerts including Chamber Domaine at Pilsdon Barn, with three sonatas written at the end of the First World War dedicated to those fighting at the front and young pianist Vanessa Benelli Mossel will perform Debussy Préludes and Suite Bergamasques.

James Pearson, artistic director of Ronnie Scott’s returns to give a solo recital The Inventions Reinvented while cellist and composer Peter Gregson performs Bach Recomposed - a reinterpretation of the Bach Cello Suites.

One of the world’s finest guitarists, Craig Ogden, performs the complete Bach - Lute Suites in Malling Abbey while, violinist and vocalist Lizzie Ball and guitarist Morgan Szymanksi will preview works from Corrido – A Ballad for The Brave, taking inspiration from the cultural landscape of Frida’s time in All Saint’s Church, Tudeley with its famous Marc Chagall windows.

There will be a recital inside St Peter & St Paul Church, Trottiscliffe and rarely heard works will feature in recital by Richard Harwood and Chamber Domaine in the Control Tower in King’s Hill.

Founder and organiser Thomas Kemp, who started out learning the violin as a child in the kitchen at West Malling Primary School, said: "Music@Malling 2018 promises to be our biggest festival yet. 100 years since the end of the First World War, the resonances are still being felt and many of our programmes explore the music, literature and characters of this time.

" I am also delighted to have side-by-side events, a jamming session with James Pearson and Go Compose! - to inspire young musicians from across Kent... I know that I would have been thrilled to have had such an opportunity."

DETAILS

Music@Malling will be held in and around West Malling from Sunday, September 16 to Saturday, September 29. For more information, go to musicatmalling.com