HALIFAX Choral Society will perform Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah on Sunday, March 19.

The choir is performing its first celebration concert at the Victoria Theatre in Halifax with the North of England Classical Orchestra.

The choir, the world’s oldest amateur choral society, will be joined at the 4pm concert by the UK’s second oldest, Ipswich Choral Society. Halifax Choral Society celebrates its 200th anniversary, and promises a “huge wall of sound” from the massed choir and orchestra.

A spokesman said: “The Dies Irae, which is used so much in film and advertising and everyone will know, will be outstanding.”

The choir is repeating some of the concerts from its foundation years, such as Elijah and Haydn’s Creation, during the next 12 months.

The spokesman said: “In 1817, Haydn’s Creation was new music and the Choral Society was performing it along with other choirs up and down the country for the very first time.

“Especially for the bicentennial, the Halifax Choral Society has commissioned a choral work The Holy Face, which is the newest of new music!”

The Halifax and Ipswich choirs will reunite on April 29 to perform Elijah at the Snape Maltings in Suffolk.

The choir is running a ‘ticket and transport to the concert bundle’ from Skipton, Keighley, Bingley and Shipley to the Halifax concert, with a doorstep return.

Anyone interested should call 07939 885558 for more details.