Alvin M. Keeling 
The concert starts at 7pm and tickets are on sale via the choir’s website (www.hastingsphilchoir.org.uk) and will also be available at the door.
Spokesman John Rycroft said: “Despite the choir’s best efforts, there are a number of members who have not returned after the lockdown ended, but this has been tempered by the welcoming of new members who gave him the push he needed to move forward with confidence.
“Much of the past two years has been stop and start with concerts having to be canceled or postponed, and the feeling is that we are now at a fresh start.
“Such is the thrilling nature of Haydn’s The Creation, the muffled phrases of the opening recitative and chorus, ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth’, taken from the first four verses of the book of Genesis; parallels can be drawn with the current situation.
“Covid-19 has brought us this ‘darkness being on the face of the abyss’, and now that darkness has all but gone and once again, as sung by the chorus, ‘Let there be light: and light was. The future looks a little brighter.
“That excitement is in Haydn’s makeup, with drama galore. One can only be moved and elated! The choir is in the same vein and welcomes the public to its performances to share with them the joys that music brings to all of humanity.
“The concert will be conducted by well-known and highly respected HPC Music Director, Marcio da Silva. The soloists are all great British singers: Poppy Shotts (soprano), Kieran White (tenor) and John Holland-Avery (baritone). Kieran and John make a welcome return visit to Hastings.
“The work will be performed with organ and piano accompaniment, played by local musicians Cornelis Taekema and Francis Rayner.
“Haydn was inspired to write a great oratorio on a visit to London in 1791 when, at the Handel Festival in Westminster Abbey, he was overwhelmed by the monumental sublimity of the choruses of Messiah and Israel in Egypt by Handel, performed by a gargantuan number of over 1,000 players and singers.
“In the words of an early biographer, Giuseppe Carpani, Haydn’ confessed that…he was struck as if he had been handed over to the start of his studies and had known nothing until that moment. He meditated on each note and drew from these most scholarly scores the essence of true musical greatness.
“While still in London, Haydn expressed a desire to compose a work on an equally exalted biblical theme that would appeal to a wide audience.
“The result was The Creation, published in English and German, and first performed in London in 1800.”
After the concert, the choir will take a short break and resume rehearsals in early September, with the first concert date being Saturday, November 5, whose program will include Bach’s Magnificat and Charpentier’s Te Deum.
