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Leeds,Huddersfield and Holmfirth's significant influence on Ralph Vaughan Williams will be celebrated in June at two special events to get people of all ages singing in Huddersfield and Leeds to celebrate his 150tH birthday.

Hundreds of Singers will come to Huddersfield Town Hall on Thursday 8 June to turn folk songs into hymns in a rousing concert which has the whole audience joining in. It's a special concert which is part of the Kirklees Year of Music programme

School children from across Leeds will also be singing and playing at a day-long event at Leeds Cathedral on the following day, Friday 9 June, led by the singers and musicians from Thursday’s concert. It's part of the Leeds International Organ Festival

Yorkshire was responsible for several influential musical moments in Vaughan Williams career and these events celebrate that..

From Pub to Pulpit is a glorious audience participation concert at Huddersfield Town Hall led by the Town Hall Organ; Holmfirth Choral Society; acapella folk group Broomdasher and instrumeinstntal trio Coracle, in which they show how Vaughan Williams borrowed the folk songs for hymn tunes.

Songs for Schools is a day of school children’s’ workshops and performance at Leeds Cathedral, which ends with young musicians playing with the professionals.

“We’re singing in Cathedrals and historically renowned venues revered for Choral singing so it’s exciting to be in Yorkshire with all its links" said John Palmer.

The biggest Leeds link is the premiere of Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony, which he conducted himself as the opening concert of the Leeds Music Festival on 12 October 1910 - his 38th birthday. The 350 singers in the chorus came from Leeds, Dewsbury and Huddersfield.

Huddersfield Choral Society, he specially composed a now-famous piece for their 100th anniversary concert, in October 1936.

Holmfirth Anthem, based on town choirmaster John Perkin’s arrangement, was re-arranged as a Yorkshire Wassail by Vaughan Williams in 1906. A Westerdale farmhouse in 1904 is where he heard labourer and church section William Knaggs sing the saucy Kiss Me in the Dark, when he was staying at Dent, near Scarborough. It later appeared in a collection of folk songs.

Leeds Festival also saw the 1907 premiere of Vaughan Williams’ Toward the Unknown Region – a setting of poetry by Walt Whitman – at Leeds Town Hall Tickets for the Huddersfield concert are £10.00 from the Town Hall Box office 01484 255755 or online Tickets selection for From Pub to Pulpit: Kirklees Theatre Ticketing