OUTREACH is one of those buzzwords without which no application for arts funding is complete.

But it can have genuine meaning, never more so than on Saturday when the Ebor Singers devoted six events to the Siege of York in the summer of 1644.

Walks, lectures and concerts one involving two local schools celebrated what proved a defining event in the English Civil War.

Music For Troubled Times, the culminating concert, brought the love of Charles I for his French queen, Henrietta-Maria, to the foreground, with extracts from their letters read by Emily Allen and Christian McKay.

The backdrop came from composers largely associated with Charles's court, notably William Lawes. His three-part round, See How Cawood's Dragon Looks, reminded us of the Royalist garrison stationed at the archbishop's castle there. Two vigorous psalms must also have roused the troops.

But the best of the music symbolised the anguish that divided country and families alike. We felt the pain in William Child's dissonances, tenderly shaped. Still more telling were the raw harmonies of George Jeffreys's How Wretched is the State.

Paul Gameson and his singers deserve warm congratulations.

If this is outreach, let's have plenty more.