MUSIC and song are being used to commemorate the wartime sacrifice of County Durham soldiers and their families as part of a brass band festival this summer.

Durham Cathedral will provide the spectacular backdrop for the premiere of the Durham Hymns on July 16.

A community choir and 60-piece brass band will perform the specially written work, which features new lyrics from poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, as part of the BRASS Festival 2016.

Durham County Councillor Neil Foster said: “Durham has a fantastic military, choral and brass band heritage and the Durham Hymns will bring all of that together in a way that will really connect with people on an emotional level.

“This new suite of music will in a new and inspiring way capture what life was like for those who in many cases made the ultimate sacrifice for king and country, and the people they left behind.”

The event coincides with the centenary of the Battle of the Somme during the First World War in which over a million men were killed or wounded.

The Northern Echo, Durham County Council, the Trustees of the DLI and Durham University, with support from Durham Cathedral, have launched an appeal to raise £20,016 for a lasting monument to the bravery of the men of the 18th Battalion Durham Light Infantry, better known as the Durham Pals, who died in the fields of France.

The music for the Durham Hymns has been written by composers Orlando Gough and Jessica Curry, with a prelude piece by Jonathan Bates based on DLI soldier George Butterworth’s The Banks of Green Willow.

The band brings together some of the county’s top brass musicians, under the direction of conductor Alan Fernie, and a community choir and semi-professional ensemble Voices of Hope, directed by Simon Fidler.

One of the hymns, entitled Oranges, is based on a letter by Major John English to his wife.

A piece called Soldier’s Hymn is based on the memoir of DLI Sergeant George Thompson, whose diaries tell of his relationship with his own ‘War Horse’ in the trenches.

Meanwhile, the hymn Lovely Manhood draws on the memories of Adeline Hodges, of Seaham, written towards the end of her life in 1979.

Producer Alison Lister, of the Northern Regional Brass Band Trust, said: “The Hymns are not just about life on the battlefront but the people left behind, the complex lives they led, the sacrifices made and the moral decisions they faced.”

Tickets for the Durham Hymns premiere at Durham Cathedral cost £20 in the nave (£15 concessions), or £18 by the font (£13 concessions).

To book visit www.galadurham.co.uk or call the Gala box office on 03000-266-600.