With the dawn of the new Millennium, came Sedbergh Festival.

It was so successful in 2000, organiser Deryck Cox decided to do it again and it has blossomed ever since.

Staged every two years, it is becoming a prestigious event featuring some of the region's finest instrumentalists and singers as well as attracting celebrated names from the international scene, performing recitals and full-blown concerts.

Conductor Heather Paynes and the vocal ranks of Ulverston Choral Society open the festival at St Andrew's Parish Church on Saturday, June 12 (7.30pm) in great style, performing Handel's Dettingen Te Deum and Puccini's Messa di Gloria.

And the 16-day feast of music builds to a powerful finale in Bach's St John Passion on Sunday, June 27 (7.30pm). The line up of soloists and orchestra conducted by Deryck Cox on the final night includes soprano, Rachel Little; the Sedbergh Summer Singers; tenor, Nicholas Hurndall Smith; and highly-regarded Sedbergh cellist, Helen Beare.

Principal soprano for Hanover Opera Alla Kravchuk will be on song in Two Pianos and Voice on Friday, June 25 (7.30pm), accompanied by prize-winning pianists Simon Phillips and Stephen Ridge.

Alla was born in the Ukraine and studied at the Kiev Conservatoire and later in London. Her voice has been heard in concert halls across Europe and on BBC Radio 3 and 4.

However, Cumbria is close to her heart after first playing here in 1993, as soloist with the famous Boyan Ensemble of Kiev. Not only did she fall in love with the area she married a local man and made it her second home.

International organ recitalist David Sanger takes to the stage of Sedbergh School's Powell Hall on Friday, June 18 (7.15pm) in a programme of English and German romantic music. David is a prize-winning organist, composer and teacher and has made 30 records and 18 CDs. Among his many prestigious posts was professor of organ at London's Royal Academy of Music and tutor at the Royal Northern College of Music at Manchester.

No Cumbrian festival would be truly complete without the glorious voice of Kendal soprano Charlotte Jackson who, accompanied by Anne Conder, performs songs from musicals and revues in Perchance to Dream on Thursday, June 24 (9pm).