A VERY apt programme of romantic classics will be the first of the Suffolk Villages Festival spring concerts.

Celebrating Valentine’s Day, the theme of love in its various aspects will be running through the works performed by sopranos Claire Tomlin and Emma Bishton, bass violinist Louise Jameson, all led by the festival’s artisitic director Peter Holman on the harpischord.

Peter, who was awarded an MBE last year for services to early music, started the Suffolk Villages Festival in 1988.

He is perhaps best known as one of the country’s leading advocates of early music in particular Henry Purcell but also Elizabeth composers such as John Dowland.

“I’ve written several books,” Peter says, “but I suppose you could say I have quite a wide interest in the history of music from 1500 to 1850 and specifically early music and the instruments that played those works.”

He came to Colchester in the Seventies to lecture at the Colchester Institute and it was while there he co-founded renowned early music group, the Parley of Instruments, and later went on to set up Opera Restor'd, a touring company specialising in 17th and 18th century English opera and music theatre.

Taking place in some of the area’s most spectacular churches, the Suffolk Villages Festival holds regular concerts throughout the year as well as a special Summer festival which runs over the August Bank Holiday Weekend.

The festival’s first concert for 2016 will take place in Nayland Village Hall this Sunday from 6pm and among the works being played include Henry Purcell’s Elegy on the Death of Queen Mary and Francois Couperin’s beautiful setting of the Magnificat.

Peter adds: “I always try and combine little known musical pieces with the more well known, all played on early instruments, and fortunately people seem to like that.

“We had a fantastic festival last year and this first concert is packed with pieces by some of my favourite composers so it should be a great one to start the year off.”

Tickets for the concert are £18 (reserved), £12 (unreserved), available by calling 01904 651485.

For more information go on-line on at www.suffolkvillagesfestival.com