ST Albans Chamber Choir is hoping not to be all at sea when its new season gets underway.

But the choir has followed the inspiration of many British composers and features the sea and the weather in its forthcoming concerts.

The highlight will be in St Albans Abbey next April with a performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s greatest work for choir and orchestra, A Sea Symphony. For the concert, the choir will be joined by by its German twin-town counterpart, the Wormser Kantorei, and the St Albans Symphony Orchestra.

The watery theme continues in July with Vaughan Williams’s song cycle Full Fathom Five and Richard Rodney Bennett’s Sea Change as well as two much-acclaimed contemporary works, Cloudburst by Eric Whitacre and Bob Chilcott’s light-hearted Weather Report.

Prior to that the Chamber Choir will be performing its opening concert of the season, entitled Remembrance, in St Peter’s Church, St Albans, on November 20. It will feature Howell’s moving Requiem and the motet Take him, earth, for cherishing.

In January, to help banish the post-Christmas blues, the choir will be performing its first-ever jazz concert with the foot-stomping Mass in Blue by Will Todd, Ken Jenkin’s A Parliament of Owls and John Rutter’s Birthday Madrigals, a tribute to the great jazz pianist George Shearing.

Further details can be found at www.stalbanschamberchoir.org.uk