This year’s festival in Beverley packs eleven events into five days. Highlights include the Tallis Scholars in Beverley Minster on 23 May singing music by Palestrina, Victoria, Ingegneri and Guerrero and the modern composer Gabriel Jackson, preceded by a talk on the performance of renaissance polyphonic music by Prof John Bryan.

Catherine Bott (soprano), James Bowman (counter-tenor) and Peter Seymour (harpsichord) follow that on 24 May with a lunchtime recital of sparkling arias and vocal duets by Handel. That evening the baroque theme is picked up by the Academy of Ancient Music with Pavlo Beznosiuk (director and violin) and Frank de Bruine (oboe), who will perform two concerti grossi by Handel and a selection of solo and double concertos by Vivaldi, Benda, Albinoni and Bach.

25 May brings two highly attractive chamber concerts. In the afternoon Compagnia d’Istrumenti, comprising Ailsa Reid (recorders) Daniel Edgar and Nai Lewis (violins) with Peter Seymour (harpsichord) offer a selection of music by Rameau, Couperin and Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, evoking the musical atmosphere of the courts of Louix XIV and Louis XV. That evening, Emma Kirkby (soprano) and Jakob Lindberg (lute) offer a selection of English lute songs.
The festival closes with the Fitzwilliam String Quartet in a programme of Mozart quartets.
www.ncem.co.uk