WELSH soprano Fflur Wyn will perform with the York Minster Choir at its annual performance of Handel’s Messiah, always an integral part of preparations for Christmas in York, on December 13 at the cathedral.

Fflur has gained acclaim for her operatic performances across the world and was been elected an associate to the Royal Academy of Music in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the music profession. She will be joined by counter-tenor James Neville, who began his musical training as a chorister of Cardiff Metropolitan Cathedral and has since sung with the King’s College Choir, Cambridge, and as a soloist.

James Oxley, who has appeared at all the major concert halls in London, will be singing the tenor role, while Benjamin Bevan will return for a second year in the bass role, a performance he has given with The English Concert and at Sage, Gateshead too.

The 7pm concert will be conducted by York Minster’s director of music, Robert Sharpe, and accompanied by assistant director of music David Pipe. Tickets cost from £12 online at yorkminster.org or from the admissions desk.

Meanwhile, only the last few tickets remain available for the York Minster Christmas Carol Concerts on December 5, with Yorkshire Volunteers Band, and December 6, with the York Railway Institute Band.

Next Friday's guest readers will be television dramatist and former director Ian Bayley Curteis, whose writing credits include The Onedin Line and Crown Court , and actress Clare Clifford, who has made her mark on the stand-up comedy circuit too with her Not The Olympics show in 2012.

Next Saturday's readers will be the BBC journalist and author Hugh Pym, a leading commentator on the banking crisis, and actress Cherie Lunghi, fresh from her West End turn as Gwendolen Fairfax in the "mature" version of Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest.

Both 90-minute carol concerts will start at 7pm.