Three big anniversaries are being commemorated at the 15th West Meon Music Festival.

The Primrose Piano Quartet - Susanne Stanzeleit, Dorothea Vogel, Andrew Fuller and John Thwaites - founded the event in 2011. This year’s festival will be performed in Meon Valley churches from September 11 to 14.

The opening concert on September 11 will mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Dmitri Shostakovich with a performance of his Second Piano Trio. Completed in 1944, the work reflects on the horrors of the Second Word War and is supremely moving.

On September 12 the attention shifts to the 150th anniversary of Maurice Ravel’s birth, when upcoming piano star Clara Siegle will perform some of his solo piano pieces. The late night concert that evening will include Ravel’s violin and cello sonata, written in the 1920s and dedicated to Debussy. His scintillating Tzigane for violin and piano completes the line-up at the Coffee Concert on the morning of September 14.

The Festival Finale on the afternoon of September 14 marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth with performances of some of her favourite works and readings from her notebooks and letters.

Renowned tenor James Gilchrist is making a return visit to the festival and will be joined by the Primrose Piano Quartet for an exciting premiere of a new work by Peter Salem, known for his extensive output of television, film and theatre music, including Call The Midwife.

Other festival highlights include a morning of Viennese string quartets in East Meon church, and a programme of early French harpsichord music at Warnford church on the afternoon of September 13. All other concerts will be held in West Meon church.

Tickets, priced from £15, will be available from June 13. For tickets, and full details of all eight festival concerts, visit www.westmeonmusic.co.uk