WEST Meon Music Festival takes place from Friday until Sunday at St John the Evangelist Church in the village.

‘Travelling with Mozart’ is the theme of this year’s festival with a work by the composer included in each concert, combined with a selection of pieces, by such maestros as Beethoven, Rachmaninov and Brahms, related to places that Mozart visited – or perhaps may have wanted to visit.

Performances include Schubert’s great String Quintet in C major, Franck’s ever-popular Violin Sonata in A and one of the only two piano quartets written by Mozart.

The festival’s founders – the renowned Primrose Piano Quartet – will be joined by David Angel of the Maggini String Quartet and leading young cellist Adrian Bradbury in Schubert’s C major Quintet.

Mozart’s Piano Quartet in E-flat is a very early example of the genre written in 1785-6 with a virtuoso piano part designed to demonstrate the composer’s own skill at the instrument.

Other featured works include Mozart’s Duo for Viola and Violin in B-flat – one of the two he “ghost wrote” for his friend Michael Haydn who had fallen ill before completing a set of six such duos commissioned by the Archbishop of Salzburg.

Sunday morning’s ‘Coffee Concert’ adds a Spanish flavour to the festival with Sarasate’s virtuoso arrangement for violin of favourite tunes from Bizet’s opera Carmen.

As well as four concerts by The Primrose Piano Quartet, the festival includes a ‘Young Performers Platform’ featuring the Schoonakker String Quartet from the Royal Academy’s junior section, a light-hearted children’s concert on Saturday morning with a travel theme, and late night folk music at West Meon’s Thomas Lord pub also on Saturday.

These concerts will also be raising funds for the Winchester and District Young Carers Project – the festival’s charity for 2015.

The festival opens on Friday at 7.30pm with four events on the Saturday and two on Sunday.

Full details of all seven festival events can be

found at www.westmeonmusic.co.uk and tickets are available from One Tree Books in Lavant Street, Petersfield.