Hundreds of singers in Brecon will raise the roof at a rousing concert in Brecon Cathedral next month when they turn folk songs into hymns as part of the Cathedral’s centenary celebrations.

The From Pub to Pulpit concert on Saturday, May 20 features acapella folk group Broomdasher, instrumental trio Coracle – led by Paul Hutchinson of the legendary Belshazzar’s Feast– and the Cathedral organ and choir and the whole audience who will all sing at the top of their voices in tribute to the 150th birthday of Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose family came from Camarthenshire.

Proceeds go to the Cathedral, and choirs and singers in the area are being invited to make the evening a celebration to be remembered.

The 20-date tour of Cathedrals, Minsters and Significant Churches has been picked as a “Highlight of the Vaughan Williams Festival Year” by The Times; The Guardian; The Telegraph; Gramophone; Folking and The Living Tradition magazines.

Tickets are £13 for the concert and pre-show reception or £10 for the Concert. They are available through Eventbrite here.

Vaughan Williams was a well-known collector of folk songs, and he borrowed folk song tunes he collected from labourers around the country for the tunes of some of the best hymns in the 1906 English Hymnal he edited.

In the second half of the concert, Broomdasher and Coracle take the audience on a musical journey, starting with the folk song, going through dance tune variations and climaxing with everyone raising the roof with full-blooded renditions of the hymns.

They include To Be a Pilgrim, and I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say, transformed from the folk songs Our Captain Calls and The Murder of Maria Marten.

“We’re excited about coming to Brecon in their Centenary Year and even happier that we’ll be raising funds for the Cathedral,” said From Pub to Pulpit’s John Palmer.

“There are sure to be dozens of magnificent singers in the Land of Song and we hope they’ll come and join us in raising the roof!”