It scarcely seems ten years that we have been Celebrating English Song in the parish church at Tardebigge.

What has become a quintessential feature of the Worcestershire summer reaches this year’s final recital on Sunday August 18 when baritone Marcus Farnsworth is accompanied by pianist James Baillieu in the world premiere of John Joubert’s That Time of Year, expanded from his 2007 setting of a Shakespeare sonnet about autumn, now including winter, spring and summer as well.

More Shakespeare songs are provided by Roger Quilter, and the Benjamin Britten centenary is marked by his Tit For Tat and some of his imaginative folk-song settings, as well as the totally non-vocal Cello Suite no3 – a brilliant addition to the programme, performed by Cara Berridge. Berridge will also collaborate with Farnsworth and Baillieu in Songs of Immortality by Susie Self, composer-in-residence at Tardebigge this year.

These are settings of the Dymock poets, operating in the early part of the last century in that Gloucestershire village between Ledbury and Newent, and including Self’s own grandfather John Drinkwater.

The recital is preceded by a Composers’ Question Time, when John Joubert, Susie Self and Ian Venables answer questions from members of the audience. Graham Lloyd is in the chair for this event in the adjoining Community Hall, also in which Tardebigge’s famous tea and cakes will be served during the interval.

From the intimacy of English song recital, we move to two of the region’s great choral societies who have announced details of their 2013-14 concert seasons.

The Birmingham Bach Choir’s prospectus includes an intriguing exploration of British choral music largely from the last 100 years and slightly earlier.

Now in existence for nearly a century, the choir’s main concert activity for the new season begins on Saturday November 23 at the Adrian Boult Hall with a programme entitled Symphonies of Song, beginning with works by Elgar and George Dyson and ending with Stravinsky’s austere and gripping Symphony of Psalms.

Saturday March 29 sees the Birmingham Bach Choir perform Song of the Lamb at Birmingham Oratory, a sequence of music by JS Bach, Kenneth Leighton, Scarlatti, James MacMillan and the current must-hear composer Eric Whitacre. The programme is repeated at Tewkesbury Abbey on Saturday April 12. We then have to wait until Saturday September 13 for a very special concert marking the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War.

The Orchestra of the Swan joins Paul Spicer and his Birmingham Bach Choir, plus soprano Sarah Fox and baritone Roderick Williams for the world premiere of Spicer’s Unfinished Remembering, a commemorative choral symphony with words by the poet Euan Tait. Vaughan Williams’ equally pacifist Dona Nobis Pacem launches the evening.

Ex Cathedra marches across the years towards its Golden Jubilee with a 2013-14 season beginning explosively with Beethoven’s mighty Missa Solemnis (October 12, Symphony Hall). The CBSO, no less, collaborates, and the soloists are Sophie Bevan, Jennifer Johnston, Andrew Tortise and Roddy Williams.

Birmingham Town Hall hosts the Ex Cathedra Consort and Fretwork Viol Consort on Sunday December 8 for An Elizabethan Christmas, and there follows the legendary Christmas Music by Candlelight at St Paul’s Church in the Jewellery Quarter.

Jeffrey Skidmore next turns to one of his great loves, South American baroque music, for Brazilian Baroque – a Musical Eldorado at Birmingham Town Hall on Saturday March 1.

Good Friday brings Bach’s St John Passion to Symphony Hall at 2pm, and the season ends on Wednesday June 25 with Ex Cathedra’s legendary Summer Vespers by Candlelight at Birmingham Oratory.

This time the theme is Venice celebrating the birth of the Sun King Louis XIV. The featured composer is a name new to me – Giovanni Rovetta, Monteverdi’s successor at St Mark’s Cathedral, and I look forward to hearing him.

* Celebrating English Song details on 01527 872422.

* Birmingham Bach Choir details on 0121 705 4418.

* Ex Cathedra details on 0121 345 0603.