THE Skampa Quartet opens the new season for Malvern Concert Club next week, as thoughts increasingly turn towards its centenary.

The club has lined up six concerts for its 99th season, beginning with The Skampa Quartet on Thursday (September 20) and finishing with the English Horn Trio on May 2.

A notable absentee this year is the works of Sir Edward Elgar, who helped found the club in 1903 and served as secretary until 1942. The family tradition was revived when his daughter Carice served as chairman and later president.

His omission is to clear the way for the centenary season, when Elgar will be a central feature.

Among the exciting centenary projects is a new commission by Anthony Payne, who completed Elgar's sketches for the Third Symphony.

Other plans include the Violin Sonata played by Priya Mitchell and Ian Brown, the piano quartet by the Nash Quartet and the string quartet by the Brodsky Quartet, who aim to recreate part of the programme from the very first concert performed by Adolph Brodsky and his colleagues.

Turning to this year's concerts, The Skampa Quartet will perform works by Mozart, Martinu and Beethoven on Thursday at 7.30pm at The Forum, Malvern Theatres, where all the concerts are held.

The quartet are Pavel Fischer and Jana Lukasova, violin, Radim Sedmidubsky, viola, and Peter Jarusek, cello.

They came together at the Prague Academy in 1989 and were freed to tour internationally by the Velvet Revolution that year.

They made their Wigmore Hall debut in 1993, winning the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for best debut that year, and began a five-year stint as artists in residence at the venue.

As well as radio and television appearances for the BBC, the quartet have made eight recordings and taught and performed around the world. In May, they were appointed visiting professors of chamber music at the Royal Academy of Music.

They will be followed on October 18 by pianist Noriko Ogawa with a programme including work by Takemitsu, the inclusion of the Japanese composer making it one of the events of the Japan 2001 festival in Britain.

Soprano Evelyn Tubb and Sprezzatura, a combination of lute, harpsichord and viola da gamba, will be the guests on November 29. Brotherly Love is a programme of English 17th Century songs contrasting the music of brothers Henry and Daniel Purcell and Henry and William Lawes.

On January 24, oboeist Douglas Boyd and The Vellinger Quartet perform a programme of work by Haydn, Bliss, Mozart and Brahms.

March 7 brings together Philip Dukes on viola and Sophie Rahman on piano for pieces by Schumann, Hugh Wood, Brahms, Block and Prokofiev.

The season ends with the English Horn Trio, whose concert includes work by Debussy, Michael Zev Gordon, Lennox Berkeley and Brahms.

Tickets for individual concerts are £12 for adults, £11 for over-60s and £5 for full-time students under 21, from the Malvern Theatres box office on 01684 892277.