COME June 23, and Kendal will be awash with music, sweet, sweet music, performed by choirs from near and far.

In fact, almost 40 choirs with nigh on 900 singers will descend from as far away as Brighton and Perth, singing their joyful hearts out around the town as part of the annual Street Choirs Festival.

Welcomed with open arms by the Kendal community choir Lakeland Voices, which is hosting the festival, the June 23-25 weekend features concerts, workshops and plenty of singing on the streets.

Lakeland Voices leader David Burbidge says they are really pleased to be hosting the 2017 festival with more than 40 of LV's singers having volunteered to help with stewarding, providing information and first aid, and arranging the workshops.

Choirs performing include Three Valleys Gospel Choir from Todmorden, Birmingham Clarion Singers, Manchester Community Choir, Preston People's Choir, Kadenza from Bolton, and Sheffield Socialist Choir. Many of them sing songs which promote social justice, while others use harmony singing as a way of creating healthy communities.

"We look forward to sharing some of our beautiful scenery with them and helping them to appreciate the warm welcome for which Kendal is famous," adds David.

Nearer home, local ensembles taking part include the mighty K Shoes Male Voice Choir, Penrith Community Choir, the Milnthorpe women's singing group Ottovoce, and the Fellside Singers.

The main event is on the Saturday afternoon when the choirs sing in a variety of venues around Kendal, including the delightful gardens of the Brewery Arts Centre.

And distinguished names of the vocal world, Frankie Armstrong, Tyndale Thomas and Janet Russell, will be leading workshops in a variety of styles such as Supporting the Voice for Singing, Gospel, and Songs of Hope and Ecology.

So, how did the Street Choirs Festival happen to blaze a choral trail to Lakeland: "A couple of years ago I led our choir, The Singing Cyclists, from Ravenglass to the Whitby Street Choirs Festival, where we sang with 40 other choirs," explains David.

"The Street Choirs Festival happens in different towns each year, so at that festival I suggested to the organisers that we could do the festival in Kendal, which was accepted. Next year the festival will be in Brighton.

"The raison d'etre of the festival is for choirs to meet together for the weekend, to enjoy each other's music, to perform on the streets, and to share their songs and skills with each other in a number of workshops. All the choirs have an ethos of cooperation, tolerance and social justice, and value community. Some of the choirs are active campaigning choirs who use singing as a way raising awareness of certain issues such as the plight of refugees or the destruction of rain forests."

One or two of the campaigning choirs perform songs as protests against the arms trade or NHS cuts.

The Friday (June 23, 7.30pm) concert at Kendal Leisure Centre stars Coope Boyes and Simpson, K-Shoes Male Voice Choir, Lakeland Voices, and others.

The Saturday massed choir workshop starts at 9.15am at the leisure centre followed by a walk at noon along the old canal, past the allotments and over the footbridge over the River Kent to the Brewery Arts Centre.

The massed sing in Kendal town centre outside the Brewery starts at 12.30pm followed by busking around town in 20 venues which include outside the library, in the Market Place, on Finkle Street, outside Waterside by the river, outside Abbot Hall Art Gallery, at the Birdcage in the centre of town, at Kendal Castle and in several parks.

The Sunday morning one hour workshops are from 9.30am and 11.15am in different venues around Kendal (including the Brewery, Castle Street Centre, town hall, and Abbot Hall Social Centre) - which include singing workshops with Faith Watson, Ali Burns, Kirsty Martin, Janet Russell (Songs of Hope and Ecology,) Jamie MacDowell (director of the Kendal Alexander Technique School) followed by a picnic on Gooseholme, ending at 2.30pm.

Meanwhile, Coope Boyes and Simpson, play the Brewery Arts Centre on Friday, May 26 (7.30pm) as part of their farewell UK tour, which will be a celebration of their career, and will feature material from across their entire repertoire.

In 1993, Coope Boyes and Simpson released an album of a cappella songs full of social comment and, in the words of Folk Roots, "harmonies you could chew."

The album was Funny Old World, which Q Magazine named as its Roots Album of the Year in 1994.

Now, 24 years later, with a career that has encompassed at least a dozen albums, numerous tours and festival appearances, as well as a Folk Awards nomination, Coope Boyes and Simpson have released what's their final studio album Coda, and touring for the last time.

For further information about the Street Choirs Festival 2017 and maps of where to find the various choirs visit the Lakeland Voice website at www.lakelandvoice.co.uk.