BEAMINSTER-based chamber choir Parnham Voices will perform a programme of love songs drawn from four centuries for its autumn concert at All Saints Church, Wyke Regis, on Saturday 14th November at 7pm.

The Course of True Love, conducted by Mark Burstow, who became the choir’s director earlier this year, runs from Elizabethan madrigals by Morley, Dowland, Wilbye and Tomkins, through Pearsall, Elgar and Finzi, to Cole Porter.

The concert includes songs about courtship, companionship and remembrance. All Saints Church is the regular autumn venue for the choir. Readings between the sets follow love from first meeting to lasting memory, taking their cue from Shakespeare’s observation that the course of true love never did run smooth.

New director Mark Burstow also directs Bournemouth Symphony Youth Chorus and is a visiting music teacher at Parkstone Grammar School, where he directs the Bella Voce chamber choir. In Belfast he sang as a lay clerk at St Anne’s Cathedral and directed the Tavener Consort. Mark was musical director of Bournemouth Male Voice Choir for 20 years until 2025.

He says: “These are songs about something everyone recognises: falling in love, being let down, building a life with someone and remembering them. The madrigals are 400 years old and they are still sharp, funny and moving.

“Parnham Voices sing this music with real character – finishing with Cole Porter shows that composers have always been happy to laugh at love too.”

The choir rehearses on Monday evenings at Beaminster Museum and has a small number of vacancies for interested singers. More information at www.parnhamvoices.org