Opening this year’s English Music Festival brochure is rather like opening up a menu and finding such a tempting array of deliciously tasty treats that you are spoilt for choice.

Once again, Em Marshall — who founded the festival in 2006 — is serving up an assortment of familiar pieces mixed with the unfamiliar, spiced up with no less than four world premieres and seasoned with some of this country’s finest musicians.

As we meet for a coffee in West London, Em is clearly excited about the forthcoming festival, which has become a showcase for some of the most beautiful and inspiration works in the English music repertoire.

One of its principal aims is to unearth neglected musical gems, and this year’s opening concert, by the BBC Concert Orchestra, features the world premiere of Yorke Bowen’s Symphony No.1, which has been recorded but apparently never performed live.

“The first movement was played at the premiere in 1901, shortly after he’d written it,” Em tells me. “There was a long review from the Musical Times saying how wonderful it was and how they wished they’d gone on to play the rest of the symphony rather than the other pieces in the concert! So we’re really excited about that.”

The same concert features Montague Phillips’ Piano Concerto No.1, which was last performed live in 1912, and will be played in Dorchester by celebrated pianist and EMF regular David Owen Norris. There will also be little-known pieces by Havergal Brian, Alwyn and Moeran, and the first performance for 100 years of Quilter’s Serenade.

Other world premieres include violin sonatas by Bliss and Walford Davies, performed by young violinist Rupert Luck, and Carr’s A Gentle Music, performed by the Orchestra of St Paul’s at Radley College’s Silk Hall.

One of Em’s highlights is a semi-staged performance of Holst’s little-known opera Savitri, with singers Janice Watson, Mark Chaundy, David Wilson-Johnson and Paul Guinery.

“It’s going to be a nightmare because we’ve never staged anything before,” she laughs. “We’re not having a director — we’re doing it ourselves, and rehearsal time is very limited, so it’s going to be very simply done. It might be our last semi-staged piece!”

New this year is a special ‘Come and Sing’ event, which will bring the festival to a rousing finale on the Sunday evening.

So, for anyone who fancies exercising their vocal chords with Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs and Elgar’s Scenes from the Bavarian Highlands, this is your chance! This event will be conducted by broadcaster Brian Kay, and will also feature baritone David Wilson-Johnson and pianist David Owen Norris. In between there will be various chamber and choral events, with the Elysian Singers, the Tippett Quartet, the Syred Consort, Oxford Liedertafel and Medieval music band Joglaresa.

Em is both amazed and delighted that the festival continues to attract so much support, both from artists and audiences.

“People are really emotional about this music, which is great. I’ve often had old ladies coming up to me in tears at the end of a concert saying ‘I never thought I’d hear that piece live again’, or ‘My grandfather played that before he went off to fight in the war’, or something.

“The artists are often coming in to play for rubbish fees, because they believe in what we’re doing and want to support it. But also they are aware of the amount of music that doesn’t get played, so to do something different is interesting and exciting for them. And I think a lot of them do genuinely love this repertoire.”

Plans for the future include an expansion of the official website to include composer profiles and an interactive history of English music, the development of an education scheme, and a recruitment drive for the EMF Friends Scheme.

Meanwhile, the search for lost masterpieces goes on.

“I’d like to try some bigger works, and think about getting some pieces on disc,” says Em. “We’ll continue digging out symphonies and concertos — there are symphonies that haven’t been recorded or heard for hundreds of years — so that’s certainly something I’d like to focus on.”

lAll events at Dorchester Abbey unless otherwise stated. For full details, call 0300 0303003. or visit englishmusicfestival.org.uk