SERENDIPITY has the nation’s favourite choir performing in this year’s Hexham Abbey Festival thanks to a well-timed invitation.

Voices of Hope were being anointed National Choir of the Year 2016 as it dropped through their letterbox, and so it is that they will be stopping off here en route to an international choir competition taking place in Finland.

It was just what new joint music directors Martin Hughes and Denis McCaldin wanted to hear, having stepped into the breach after the departure of festival director Marcus Wibberley for London and a fresh challenge.

“It was just down to good timing that we got them,” said Martin. “It’s great to have a group like Voices of Hope to shout about, because they not only represent this region in what they do, but they are going on to represent the country when they take part in Euroradio’s Let the People Sing competition in Helsinki.”

The choir will be performing on the evening of Friday, September 22, in what has come to be the traditional candlelit concert.

Entitled De Profundis, or ‘From the Depths’, the programme will embrace the musical masters of France and the Low Countries across five centuries, including Orlando di Lasso, Josquin des Prez, Duruflé, Debussy and Poulenc.

With the mainstay of the festival already a dead cert – the highly- regarded Hexham Abbey Festival Chorus – the two choirs provided Martin and Denis with the foundations they needed for what they are describing as a ‘festival reboot’.

It will only be four days long this year, rather than the usual eight or nine days, but the doughty duo were determined the ‘rest year’ that seemed to be in the offing wouldn’t happen.

While they were assuming the reins, it was better to have something rather than nothing, they figured. Denis said: “A few like-minded people felt that if the festival lay down, it would die.

“One of the key elements is the Hexham Abbey Festival Chorus – it’s their big night out and we wanted to make sure we kept that too.”

Performing on the Saturday night, the chorus will present the ever- popular Requiem by Gabriel Fauré and the beautiful choral settings of Panis Angelicus and the Cantique de Jean Racine. It will all be washed down with draughts of Ravel, Debussy, Saint-Saëns and Morten Lauridsen.

Martin and Denis were able to hit the ground running thanks to the experience and massive network of contacts they have between them.

Martin is a violinist who has led both the strings section in the Royal Northern Sinfonia and the corresponding department at Glasgow’s famed Royal Conservatoire. This is also second time around for him at the festival – he was at the helm for six years during the 1980s.

Meanwhile, Denis is a conductor with a distinguished track record. Many of Britain’s major orchestras – the Royal Philharmonic, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the Halle among them, have played to his beat.

He is also professor emeritus of music performance studies at Lancaster University and director of the Haydn Society of Great Britain.

One young up-and-coming musician Martin is delighted to have lured to Hexham is Matthew McAllister, who was one of his students in Glasgow. He will be giving a lunchtime recital in the Abbey’s Great Hall.

“Matthew was in Texas last week and this week he’s in Spain, and he was somewhere else in between,” said Martin. “He’s widely regarded as one of the most talented guitarists in Europe.”

Perhaps this year should be called the Festival of Coups in that Martin has pulled off a third. A big jazz fan himself, he has managed to attract the leaders of the British jazz scene, saxophonist Stan Sulzmann and pianist Nikki Iles, for a late night slot that will be ripe with atmosphere.

It won’t begin until 10.30pm on the Saturday, in the Great Hall.

“We probably only got them because Nikki’s a friend,” said Martin. “When I said ‘are you free that day?’ she said no at first.

“Then she said,‘hang on, we’re finished at the Scarborough International Jazz Festival at 2pm – how far is Hexham?’”

Pint-sized it might be, but this year’s festival is going to be brimming with activity nonetheless.

For in addition to the above, there will be an organ recital by Michael Haynes and John Green, an interactive lecture on the French philosphy of music given by Newcastle University’s Dr Adam Potts, a performance by Martin himself and pianist David Murray that will be accompanied by coffee and croissants, and a plethora of performances by the Abbey choirs.

However, parents might want to pencil the Saturday in particular in their diaries, for it’s going to be a family fun day replete with singing workshops and crafts, complemented by music at the Bandstand for good measure.

Hexham Abbey Festival will run from Thursday, September 21, until Sunday, September 24. Tickets are available from the Queen’s Hall box office now.