AUDIENCES for this year's 19th Ripon International Festival are assured of an exciting mix of music styles and performers.

The festival runs from September 2 to 17 at venues including Ripon Cathedral, Harrogate Royal Hall and Markenfeld Manor.

The cathedral will ring to Weber’s Overture Oberon, Bruch’s Violin Concerto and Schubert’s majestic 9th Symphony, known as “The Great”, in a gala concert by the Royal Northern Sinfonia on September 10.

The conductor is the festival's artistic director, Janusz Piotrowicz, and the violin soloist is Alexander Sitkovetsky, recipient of the Lincoln Center New York Emerging Artist Award 2016.

Piotrowicz also conducts the London Mozart Players in the festival's closing concert at the Royal Hall in a dazzling programme of Mendelssohn’s exuberant Italian Symphony, Mozart’s Oboe Concerto, with virtuoso soloist Daniel Bates, and Beethoven’s 7th Symphony – a work of infinite beauty with a furiously energetic finale.

Other groups and ensembles lined up include the red-hot-baroque quartet, Red Priest, led by recorder player Piers Adams, in a sizzling new programme, Gypsy Baroque Fantasy.

The ensemble Joglaresa will present intoxicating elements of mediaeval, Middle Eastern, flamenco and Celtic music. Aquarelle Guitar Quartet plays a mix of popular music including Santaolalla’s Motorcycle Diaries.

Also appearing are the Carnival Band, folk singer Kathryn Tickell and saxophone wizard Huw Wiggin with his Ferio Saxophone Quartet. There is a puppet show for families, The Fisherman and the Pearl, and an adaptation for children of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Box Tale Soup Theatre Company.

The festival runs from September 2-17. For full programme and online bookings, go to www.riponinternationalfestival.com, the box office on 01765 605508 or Harrogate Theatre on 01423 502116.