A WEALTH of homegrown talent and internationally renowned artists is heading to the Yorkshire Dales this weekend for Sedbergh's eagerly awaited Music Festival.

The biennial feast of music is to open on a high note this Sunday (May 29) with an exhilarating Night at the Opera. Some of the most famous arias and ensembles of the entire operatic repertoire, from Rigoletto, La Bohème, Don Giovanni and West Side Story, will be performed at St Andrew's Church, the main festival venue. Soprano Jessica Hurst, whose passion for singing began at Sedbergh School - where she starred as Maria in West Side Story - is to make a welcome return. She will perform a selection of pieces by Verdi, Puccini, Massenet, Mozart and more, with friends from the UK's leading conservatoires.

Jessica, who has studied Italian in Florence, is in her fourth year of study at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland under the tutelage of mezzo-soprano Clare Shearer, and will begin her Masters in September.

Top of the bill for many will be the recital by outstanding pianist Martin Roscoe and internationally celebrated violinist Tasmin Little, who has graced the stages of New York's Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. The pair will bring a snapshot of their widely acclaimed Beethoven violin sonata cycle to Sedbergh on Wednesday, June 8. Their recent Chandos box set of Beethoven sonatas for violin and piano has been winning rave reviews for its 'stellar playing' and ‘virtuosic and subtle conversational interplay’.

The York Minster Men and Boys Choir is to offer a 'thrilling' programme of Tudor and Victorian music under Robert Sharpe, their much-admired new director of music, on Saturday, June 11. The performance will feature pieces by Byrd, Wesley, Harris, Tallis and Bach.

Jonty Fisher's Flyright jazz trio – no strangers to the iconic London jazz club Ronnie Scott's - is to travel north on Thursday, June 2, with standards from the Great American Songbook.

Meanwhile, music of medieval pilgrims and the royal courts of the Renaissance will be explored by Sedbergh's early music group, Cornucopia, on Monday, June 6. Listen out for crumhorns, hurdy-gurdies, recorders, pipes, sackbutts, harps, psalteries and percussion.

The festival is also to showcase two local string quartets, Stonebridge and Castalia, and they will complement the highly thought-of Kentdale Wind Ensemble playing French music. Further highlights include the Sterling Trio of clarinet, flute and piano, Dent Choir in its 40th anniversary season, Sedbergh Orchestra in cabaret style, the much-loved Sedbergh Town Band travelling round the world in music, and several concerts given by younger players of the town, notably from Sedbergh School and Pepperpot.

Lunchtime recitals – organ, singers, chamber ensembles - excellent midday lunches, evening pre-concert suppers and interval refreshments complete this wonderfully rich programme.

For more details and online bookings, visit sedbergh.org.uk/musicfestival, or phone Sedbergh Tourist Information Office on 015396-20125.