AN initiative has been launched to take the music of Alton compose round the world.

Ahead of next year’s 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death, two works by Philip Andrews – Chawton House and Jane Austen Suites – together with other examples of his music, are to be made available by midsummer to Jane Austen interest groups worldwide via the Internet.

Samples of Mr Andrews’ music professionally recorded at Eggar’s School last month by Tim Hand, production manager for the Oxford Contemporary Music Festival, are to be issued on a CD for distribution. Some will be for sale, others will be distributed to performers across the UK considering their 2017 programmes to remind them of the importance of next year Jane Austen’s anniversary.

“There are hundreds of Jane Austen fans on every continent,” Mr Andrews said. “Next year, they’ll be celebrating her life, a lot of which she lived in Hampshire, including her time in Chawton where my own family has important roots. My grandfather was a footman at Chawton House.

“As a composer so closely linked by my family to this locality, where Jane Austen, when not writing masterpieces, lived her day-to-day life, I feel I should try to use my music to broaden the way she is thought of today. For a musician, there is almost too much in her novels to take on, which is why I chose to concentrate on her female characters for my suite.”

Fans of Mr Andrews’ music and music-lovers generally can be part of the initiative even before the invitation goes out to play his music during the 2017 celebrations. Admirers of his work are preparing a concert in which it will feature alongside music by Brahms, Chopin and others. Tickets for the special concert at the Friends’ Meeting House, Alton, on Friday, May 6, are now available from The Knitting Habit in Market Street, Alton.