STROUD'S Wool and Water Festival continues this weekend, with weaving workshops, a knitting orchestra and a specially composed cantata.

The festival is a joint event organised by the Cotswold Canals Trust and the Stroudwater Textile Trust to celebrate the wool and canal heritage in and around the Stroud Valleys.

The Knitting Orchestra, led by performance and conceptual artist Uta Baldauf, will be performing at Stroud Brewery on Sunday at 2.30pm.

Also on Sunday, the Brewery will be hosting spinning, weaving and knitting demonstrations, a canal story walk, plus a festival concert.

Husband and wife team, Hugh Barton and Val Kirby composed their cantata 'Wool and Water' as a way of telling the story of the woollen industry and the canal in the Stroud Valleys through music.

Hugh Barton – well known as conductor of the Stroud Refugee Aid Choir – was commissioned to write a work celebrating the first Wool and Water Festival.

He asked Val Kirby, who led the bid for the next stage of canal restoration, to capture the essence of the Five Valley’s history in poetry and prose.

The resulting dramatic cantata involves choir, wind group, percussion and speaker.

The piece will receive its first performance on Sunday 15th September at 7.30 in the new Stroud Brewery Balcony Bar.

The concert will also include an entertaining mix of vocal and wind music from Renaissance to Rock, including Benjamin Britten’s extra-ordinary ‘Rejoice in the Lamb’.

The performers include the Cotswold Canal Singers, Gloucester-base Ensemble i.a.t.B and Stroud’s Mark Coldrick on percussion.

Tickets are available on-line from atelierstroud.co.uk and on the door.

Adults £10, children free. Any surplus goes to support the Cotswold Canal Trust and Stroudwater Textile Trust.

Stroud Brewery events on Sunday, September 15:

13:00-15:45 Spinning, weaving and knitting demonstration, with short performance by the Knitting Orchestra at 14:30. Free Entry.

15:00-16:30 Canal story walks with Fiona Eadie. Meet in Stroud Brewery Garden. Free to join.

19:30 Concert. £10 (tickets available from Atelier Stroud or on the door).

Other Wool and Water Festival events this weekend:

Weaving workshop at Atelier with Sally Hampson on Saturday and Sunday from 10.30pm.

Visit: atelierstroud.co.uk to book

Andrew Heath and Friends – “Warp and Weft” – concert at the Museum in the Park on Sunday, 3pm, £5.

Wool and Water exhibitions:

Water of the World: Wetpaint Gallery, Chalford. Ends Sat 14th September

Treasures From The Canal : artists books at Newark Park, Wotton-under-Edge. Ends November 3.

Ghost Mills : John Street Gallery, SVA. Ends 14th September.

Material Flow : Museum in the Park, Stroud. Ends Sept 22.

Wool & Water: original prints, at Griffin Mill, Thrupp. Ends 29 September.