A celebration of choral singing in Okehampton is taking place this month, when several of the town’s choirs come together for an afternoon of singing.

‘Voices Together’ at Fairplace Church on September 26 is organised by Okehampton-based Wren Music and is the first of its kind, with the hope that it will become an annual event.

Choirs taking part are the All Saints’ Church Choir, the Courtenay Players, Okehampton Voices, Sounds for the Glory of the Lord – a Polish Catholic church choir, and two of Wren Music’s own local choirs – West Devon Folk Choir and the men’s choir, MenSing.

Marilyn Tucker from Wren Music said: “It's just something we wanted to do. As the only fully professional arts organisation in Okehampton, we thought, what can we do together to celebrate all the singing that happens in the town, and we wanted to make all the groups aware of each other as well.

“The afternoon will feature a range of genres, including sacred and secular songs and all things in between – for example, Courtenay Players are a drama organisation and perform a lot of musicals. So there’ll be a bit of everything.”

Doors open at 2pm for a 2.30pm start and the event will run until around 6pm.

“It's a showcase for the choirs and a sharing amongst each other, because we want to promote collaboration and cooperation,” said Marilyn. “We’re also hoping that people who come along might be tempted to join one of them.”

A highlight of the event is a performance of Widecombe Fair, with a new arrangement by Wren Music’s Paul Wilson.

Marilyn added: “Because the day coincides with European Folk Week, Paul has made a special arrangement of Widecombe Fair for all the choirs to sing together as it's one of the most famous English folk songs and it’s from our region. So we’ll be finishing the afternoon with that.”