Lufthansa Festival

In Olympic year the UK's leading Baroque music festival celebrates musical competition and the harmony of nations. Opening with revered viol-player Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations, the programme includes the UK premier of Vivaldi's opera L'Olimpiade, the acclaimed Dunedin Consort in Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No 3 and secular cantatas, Harmonie Universelle performing the fascinating Georg Muffat, and violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch and friends in Locatelli and Leclair. Festivities end with some less than friendly operatic display when sopranos Rosemary Joshua and Mhairi Lawson enact Handel's 'Rival Queens' with the Early Opera Company and Christian Curnyn, while the festival's annual Westminster Abbey concert features Handel's sublime Ode for St Cecilia's Day.

(Photo: Jordi Savall - by David Ignaszewski)