AN AFTERNOON of medieval revelry and exotic rhythms as promised at Cliffe Castle Museum on Sunday March 24.

Bradford Festival Choral Society will perform Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana in the Keighley museum at 2pm.

The popular piece of music has featured in numerous film, sport and television soundtracks and a highly-successful advert for men’s after-shave.

Tom Leech, the choir’s musical director, highlighted the variety and colour of the music his singers would perform.

He said: “Carmina Burana is almost primitive in its rock-like drive, amazing percussion and instantly memorable melodies - the words written over 700 years ago feature the changing wheel of fortune, love, lust and debauchery!

“It’s one of the most exciting pieces a choir can perform - we can’t wait!”

The concert is part of the Music at the Museum series supported by Bradford Museums and Galleries.

Call Rob Voakes on 07961 776 131 email turnervoakes@googlemail.com for further information.

Bradford Festival Choral Society may not date back as far as Carmina Burana but it is one of the city’s longest-established choirs as well as being its largest.

The choir reflected on its history last autumn as it prepared for a concert at Bradford Grammar School commemorating the end of the First World War.

Choir leaders discovered that the West Yorkshire Archive had a wealth of material on the choir, from the 1850s, which they thought to be lost forever.

The programmes, newspaper reviews and volumes of committee minutes shed light on the impact of the 1914-18 war. In 1913 membership was 319, with 95 sopranos, 95 altos, 60 tenors, and 67 bass singers, says an AGM report in the Yorkshire Observer. In 1919 it was 236.