SEVEN concerts at the 2010 York Early Music Christmas Festival have sold out already.

Stile Antico, the Rose Concert of Viols, The Burning Bush, I Fagiolini, The York Waits, Eclipse and Joglaresa all will play to full houses at the annual festival, which will run from Thursday to December 11.

Tickets are still available for two events at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall: the instrumental ensemble Florilegium’s 7.30pm concert next Friday with soprano Dame Emma Kirkby and alto Sally Bruce Payne; and the festival return of European Union Baroque Orchestra’s 7.30pm programme on December 11.

Led by director Ashley Solomon, Florigelium will perform Vivaldi’s Salve Regina and four works by Pergolesi, including Stabat Mater for soprano and alto, to celebrate the 300th anniversary of his birth.

The European Union Baroque Orchestra, under the direction of Lars Ulrik Mortensen, will close the festival with Maladies And Melodies, featuring Biber’s vivid depiction of a fearsome battle, Battalia, and Charpentier’s Suite from Le Malade Imaginaire, his slightly over-the-top concerns about a mind infected by hypochondria.

Tickets remain on sale too for Yorkshire Bach Choir’s concert next Saturday at 7pm at St Michael le Belfrey Church, High Petergate, York, and Tastes Of Europe, the 1pm performance on December 5 by Ensemble Meridiana, winners of the 2009 York Early Music International Young Artists Competition.

The 2010 Christmas Festival is the most ambitious yet, presented by the National Centre for Early Music with 12 concerts in nine days, drawing in audiences from across Britain.

The pure voices of Stile Antico will launch the festival on Thursday with Puer Natus Est in a concert by candlelight in the Chapter House of York Minster. Their 7.30pm programme of Tudor Music At Christmas will be centred around Thomas Talli’s seven-part mass, Puer Natus – A Boy Is Born, complemented by works by William Byrd, Robert White and John Sheppard.

The Rose Consort of Viols will be joined by mezzo soprano Clare Wilkinson and the University of Huddersfield Chamber Choir for Peace On Earth: Good Will Towards Men next Saturday at 1pm at the NCEM. Together they will perform Christmas music from Tudor and Stuart England by Bull, Ravenscroft, Parsons, Byrd, Tallis and Holborne.

Yorkshire Bach Choir will be joined by sopranos Wendy Goodson and Bethany Seymour, mezzo soprano Yvonne Seymour, tenor Joshua Ellicott, bass Stephen Varcoe, and the Yorkshire Baroque Soloists for a rare performance of Handel’s Saul next Saturday night Vocalist and violinist Lucie Skeaping will lead The Burning Bush in A Night In The Garden Of Eden: Early and Traditional Jewish Music on December 5 at 7.30pm at the NCEM. Klezmer, songs of the ghetto, Hassidic melodies and haunting ballads of the old Judeo-Spanish will be played by the sextet in an evening of colour, hope and joy. “The Burning Bush are so popular that we’re programming the same group in a similar programme as part of the 2011 Beverley Early Music Festival,” says festival director Delma Tomlin. Tickets will go on sale this month.

Vocal specialists I Fagiolini bring their characteristic elan and humour to their Christmas Dinner programme on December 6 at 7.30pm at the NCEM, where works by Palestrina, Victoria, Byrd, Hildegard of Bingen, Poulenc and Warlock will be accompanied by a Christmas drama wherein the Devil challenges Adam and Christ.

The following night, same time, same venue, The York Waits and vocalist Debirah Catterall will present Nowell!! Tydnges Trew. Inspired by York Mystery Plays, they will tell the story of Christmas from the Nativity to the visitations of the Shepherds and the Magi, using shawms, sackbut, crumhorns, lute, gittern, recorders, hurdy gurdy and bagpipes.

Eclipse’s Christmas Fiesta! at the NCEM on December 9 at 7.30pm will evoke the atmosphere of a gipsy encampment, complete with conde Flamenco singing by Ulises Diaz-Ropero and flamenco dancing by Mariona Castells.

Joglaresa’s In Hoary Winter’s Night on December 10 at 7.30pm at the NCEM will be an effervescent Anglo-Irish collaboration of ancient Christmas songs, ranging from The Coventry Carol to Lordings Listen To Our Lay.

York Early Music Festival artist-in-residence Alfred Huckett will reveal his exhibition from the 2010 summer festival from 5.30pm to 6.30pm on Thursday at the NCEM.

For full details of all events, see info@ncem.co.uk. For tickets, phone 01904 658338 or book online at ncem.co.uk