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“From Pub to Pulpit”™ is an imaginative and engaging concert tour which brings to life the musical journey of folk songs Vaughan Williams collected before “borrowing” the tunes for hymn arrangements in The English Hymnal he edited in 1906.

It is part of the national RVW150 anniversary programme, and is the only project that is touring the country. It is also the only project that crosses the boundaries of Vaughan Williams’ work, bringing several genres together in a popular and accessible way.

Broomdasher and Coracle (featuring Belshazzar’s Feast’s Paul Hutchinson, Anna Tam and Karen Wimhurst) join the Cathedral organists and all the other singers to raise the roof with full-blooded renditions of some of the country’s best loved hymns.

The folk songs “Our Captain Calls”; “The Ploughboy’s Dream”; “The Brisk Young Farmer” and “The Murder will be musically transformed into “To Be a Pilgrim”; “O Little Town of Bethlehem”; “Tis Winter Now The Fallen Snow” and “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say.”

The concert premieres on the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee weekend on 3 June in Down Ampney, the Gloucestershire village church where Vaughan Williams was born. It ends in the glorious surroundings of Gloucester Cathedral in July 2023 as part of Three Choirs Festival.

The venues currently confirmed are Gloucester; Wells; Lincoln; Exeter; Coventry; St Davids Pembrokeshire; Brecon; Chester; Hull; Derby; Newcastle; Carlisle; Blackburn; Chelmsford; Down Ampney Church, Gloucestershire; St Michael and All Angels, Ledbury, Herefordshire and St Michael's Church Camden. There are ongoing conversations with St Edmundsbury; Leicester; Croydon; Leeds and Lichfield. Additionally, there are proposed performances /workshops at Broadstairs and Sidmouth folk festivals, the National Centre for Folk Arts and the English Folk dance and Song Society – home of the Vaughan Williams Library.