BILLED as Shakespeare meets Faure this weekend's classical cracker at Kendal Leisure Centre's Westmorland Hall opens with Mendelssohn's popular and effervescent overture and incidental music to Midsummer Night's Dream.

Full of fantasy and humour, the Royal Northern Sinfonia perform the piece in celebration of Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary and is the second concert in the 2016/17 Lakeland Sinfonia Concert Society series.

Mendelssohn's work sets the scene for another nod to the Bard - Faure's own, brilliantly characterful response to the Merchant of Venice: Shylock, one of Faure's most exquisite scores. Originally it was composed as an integral part of the play but, because of its success, Faure rearranged it as a concert suite dropping some numbers, expanding others and augmenting the orchestration.

For the climax to Saturday's (November 5, 7.30pm) performance, the RNS programme returns to Faure and his much loved Requiem, which provides such a deep, emotional contrast to the first part of the concert.

Saturday's concert also sees the mighty Royal Northern Sinfonia bring along its renowned chorus.

Faure's 'most gentle of requiems,' with its popular Pie Jesu, gives the Kendal audience a rare opportunity to hear the powerful RNS Chorus, making its first visit to Kendal for many years.

Stepping into the soloist spotlight for the Requiem will be star turn Malin Christensson, who delighted Kendal's audience during the Halle's Viennese concert in January; she takes time out of her busy international schedule to return to take the soprano lead - and Benjamin Appl, who has just been awarded the prestigious Gramophone Young Artist of the Year 2016 and signed with Sony, is the baritone. Both singers have been BBC New Generation Artists and both are proving to have stellar careers.

The concert is conducted by Alexandre Bloch. After winning the Donatella-Flick competition in 2012 he was assistant conductor to the London Symphony Orchestra. He says the LSO was "an incredible, thrilling experience" and he was excited to be able to benefit from working alongside the world's top conductors. He stepped in to conduct three concerts for the ill Mariss Jansons with the great Concertgebouw to huge acclaim. Now, just four years later, he has been recognised internationally as a truly talented musician with energy and enthusiasm and a quick mind. He is director of the Orchestre National de Lille, guest conductor of the Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra, conducts at the Deutsches Oper am Rhein and in the UK has worked with Opera North, BBC Wales, Manchester Camarata and the RNS.

There will be a pre-concert talk at 6.30pm.

To book telephone 0333-666-3366 or visit www.lakelandsinfonia.org.uk.