A work by Horsham Chamber Choir member Mark Browse will be premiered at the choir’s next concert.

Mark, an accomplished composer and long-time member of the choir, as well as the leader of the choir at St Margaret's church in Warnham, is offering the piece Et Incarnatus Est for inclusion in their concert on Saturday, March 28 which comes under the title Ruin and Resurrection.

“I have been a composer for 30 odd years,” Mark said. “I have been singing pretty much all my life. Both my parents were choral singers and I grew up surrounded by it. I was always in choirs. Singing is something I have done for as long as I can remember, and I think it just drew me towards writing my own music.

“This particular piece has a bit of a history. I wrote it about 20 years ago and then the opportunity to have it performed didn't crop up. I didn't exactly forget about it but I did put it to one side. And then I dug it out again and made a few revisions and offered it to Penny Homer (Horsham Chamber Choir’s director of music), and she said yes.

“It is for choir and soprano soloist, and the soloist sings words by William Langland who was a mediaeval poet. I found this little poem in an anthology I've had since I was at school but it turned out that it was an extract from a much longer narrative poem that he wrote called Piers Plowman. But in the anthology where I found it the editor had put it under the words Et Incarnatus Est. The gist of the words is a metaphor about the incarnation. The first words are ‘Love is the plant of peace and the most precious of virtues.’

“I think coming to it again having written it a while ago, it does reassure me that what I wrote is right and that it does work. It is certainly very interesting to be singing in a choir where there is a conductor giving instructions about my own piece but I think I do have to step back as the composer. I do feel that a piece should be able to stand on its own two feet and I do feel that the conductor should be able to take their own interpretation of it. There are a couple of things that Penny has suggested in terms of where people breathe that maybe I would do a little bit differently but that is great. She is very, very experienced.”

Beginning with plainsong from polymath Hildegard of Bingen, pieces in the concert will also include Brahms’ Geistliches Lied, Lotti’s Crucifixus and Lux Aeterna, an arrangement of Elgar’s Nimrod from the Enigma variations. Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary at the end of the first half is contrasted with the triumphant Coronation Anthem Zadok the Priest by Handel to round off the evening. Other compositions by Alec Roth, John Stainer, Cecilia McDowell and Frank Ticheli will also feature.

Tickets can be obtained from the Horsham Chamber Choir website at www.horsham-chamberchoir.org.uk and will also be available at the door at St Mary’s Church on Saturday, March 28. The concert will begin at 7.30pm.