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Birmingham isn’t the only centre in our region with a vibrant musical scene. It’s all happening in places like Bromsgrove, Leamington, Coventry, Lichfield and Hereford among others, but perhaps most spectacular of all is what goes on in Malvern.

This pretty hillside town is working very hard at dragging itself away from the perception of its being the sleepy, rather complacent capital of Elgarshire, with all its Empire connotations. Nowadays it is an established stopping-off place on the national circuit for star performers and major companies, as well as nurturing a thriving musical life of its own.

And they don’t come any starrier than the much-loved bass-baritone Sir Willard White, who launches the autumn season’s classical programme at Malvern Theatres with a programme entitled “From Mozart to the Musicals” (September 13).

An equally much-loved performer, pianist Peter Donohoe, visits Malvern on October 17 when he is joined by the Russian State Philharmonic Orchestra in what he has often described as “the most difficult piano concerto”, Rachmaninov’s Third. Conductor Valery Polyansky’s programme begins with extracts from Glazunov’s ballet Raymonda and concludes with Tchaikovsky’s searing Fifth Symphony.

Running through the entire 2014-15 season is the popular series of live HD broadcasts relayed from the Metropolitan Opera in New York, but the next in-the-flesh offering comes on October 24. Christopher Monks directs his Armonico Consort in the sublime Rachmaninov Vespers, originally entitled “All Night Vigil”. Listen out for the basses plumbing depths generally tackled only by pot-holers.

Another great choral work can be heard on November 1, with a performance of the dramatic Verdi Requiem commemorating the Great War. Given in aid of the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes, this concert is given by the combined Bromyard and Ledbury Choral Societies and a quartet of soloists, with the Bromyard Sinfonia. Sir Richard Mynors conducts.

November 7 sees a visit from the legendary American pianist Garrick Ohlsson, in the first of this year’s Yamaha International Piano Series. His programme begins with Beethoven’s quirky E major Sonata Op. 109, continues with Chopin’s magnificent Piano Sonata no.3 in B minor, and concludes with music by the almost psychedelic Russian composer Scriabin, the centenary of whose death occurs next year.

Malvern has long been a staging-post for the remarkable English Touring Opera, who have brought many memorable productions here in the past. The company returns on November 11 with a new staging of Haydn’s witty Life on the Moon, a comic opera lampooning the Enlightenment movement which held sway soon after the middle of the 18th century. It is followed next day by Handel’s Ottone, an opera which combines brilliance with tenderness.