Since the closure of Hay on Wye’s Community Hall, St. Mary’s Church has become an increasingly popular and important venue for community and musical events.

Musical programmes for this year and next include classical and church music, jazz, in partnership with Hay Jazz (www.hayjazz.org), folk and choral as well as recitals by individual musicians and performers.

Internationally renowned musicians who have performed in the church include the Voskresenije (Resurrection) Russian choir from St Petersburg (who will be returning to St Mary’s in October this year), musicians from Germany and Czechoslovakia, the violinist Rachel Podger, cellist Sonia Hammond, pianist Ann Collard and organist David Briggs.

On a wider stage, the BBC has produced and recorded recitals and concerts at St Mary’s and the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts now regularly books the church as a venue.

Forthcoming events include a Jazz Evening on Saturday with Janice Day and Martin Litton performing classic songs from 1939, including Gershwin, Porter and Berlin along with piano pieces from the period in a faithful reproduction of the popular songs of the dance band era. Tickets are available on the door or via Eventbrite.co.uk

On Saturday, August 4 there will be an organ recital featuring a mix of classical and light popular music at 10.30am, and a second Jazz Evening at 7.30pm, when Thomas 'Spats' Langham, guitar, vocals, banjo and ukulele, is accompanied by Martin Litton

Later in August, St Mary's will present Coulrophobia by Pickled Image, a story of two clowns trapped in a cardboard world - join Dik and Adam and a lot of cardboard – on a ridiculous, anarchic, often hysterical and sometimes terrifying quest for freedom.

Tickets for Coulrophobia available from www.kingdomproject.co.uk; www.eventbrite.co.uk; the Old Electric, Hay-on-Wye and the Globe, Hay-on-Wye.

For details of future events, visit stmaryschurchhayonwye.co.uk