James Bowman, one of the world’s best-loved countertenors, will receive the 2010 York Early Music Festival Lifetime Achievement Award tomorrow at the National Centre for Early Music in York. The award will be presented by Catherine Bott immediately after she hosts the live broadcast of BBC Radio 3’s Early Music Show from 1pm to 2pm.

Delma Tomlin, director of the NCEM, says: “James Bowman’s wonderful musicality, dramatic expressiveness and huge generosity of spirit have touched both audiences and fellow colleagues alike for almost half a century and we’re delighted to be able to recognise his remarkable contribution to music.”

For more than 40 years, Bowman’s career has spanned opera, oratorio, contemporary compositions, solo recitals and a host of recordings made with all the major record labels under such directors as Benjamin Britten, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Sir Charles Mackerras, Raymond Leppard, Christopher Hogwood, Frans Brüggen and Trevor Pinnock.

“I always enjoy coming to York to sing and therefore it is a great honour to receive this prestigious award from the York Early Music Festival, which holds many exciting and fond memories for me,” says James.

The Lifetime Achievement Award is presented biennially; previous recipients have been the Kuijken brothers, received by flautist Barthold Kuijken in 2006, and soprano Emma Kirkby in 2008.

Bott’s guests on the radio show at the NCEM will include I Fagiolini with director Robert Hollingworth, lutenist David Miller and the German lieder specialist Barbara Schlick.

I Fagiolini will perform Vecchi’s madrigal comedy L’Amfiparnaso at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, tomorrow night at 7.30pm.

This will be one of eight concerts to be recorded during the festival by Radio 3 for broadcast later this year. The others are: London Baroque’s Mariage a la Mode, NCEM, Sunday, 7.30pm; Ensemble Lucidarium’s Kehi Kinnor: Celebrating A Jewish Wedding In The Renaissance, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, Monday, 7.30pm; Fretwork, The World Encompassed: Sir Francis Drake’s Circumnavigation Of The Globe 1577-80, The Gallery, Harewood House, Tuesday, 8pm; La Capella Ducale with Musica Fiata, Koln, Wedding Motets And Songs Of Love, Chapter House, York Minster, Wednesday, 7.30pm; Hopkinson Smith, Milano: Milan, NCEM, Thursday, 1pm; Mahan Esfahani, harpsichord, Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, next Friday, noon; and Theatre Of The Ayre (for the BBC station’s opera series), St Michael le Belfrey Church, next Saturday, 7.30pm.

In addition, Bott will present Radio 3’s Discovering Music, in conversation with The Sixteen’s director, Harry Christophers, next Friday from 3.30pm to 5pm at the NCEM. Together with members of the choir, they will explore the musical ideas behind three pieces, Thomas Tallis’s Miserere Nostri, William Byrd’s Infelix Ego and John Sheppard’s Media Vita In Morte Sumus, that will feature in The Sixteen’s concert, Ceremony & Devotion, Music For The Tudors, in The Nave of York Minster that night at 7.30pm.

For tickets and full details of the festival programme, visit ncem.co.uk/yemf

Box office: 01904 658338.