THE Northern Aldborough Festival opens tomorrow with Charles Court Opera’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado at St Andrew’s Church, Aldborough, near Boroughbridge, at 7pm.

Directed by founder John Savournin, the company is noted for its ambitious G & S performances in small spaces, and so the witty satire of 19th century British politics and institutions, set in the fictitious Japanese town of Titipu, will be sung by an ensemble of nine young singers to a score rearranged by the Eaton-Young Piano Duo.

Cellophony follow up their morning concert at last year’s festival with a 7.30pm performance in St Andrew’s Church on Friday. The octet of young professional cellists, the Park Lane Group Young Artists for 2011-2012, will be joined by soprano Sarah Fox for a programme of works by Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Villa-Lobos, Liszt and Part.

Jazz guitarist Martin Taylor and rising Scottish jazz singer Alison Burns team up for a 7.30pm set of “gold-plated standards” at Old Hall, North Deighton on Saturday at 7.30pm; Chris Orton, recorder, and Laura Tivendale, harpsichord, mark the 450th anniversary of Sweelinck’s birth in a Baroque programme at Old Sleningford on June 18 at 11am that also includes works by Vivaldi, Bach, Telemann and Veracini.

Later that day, at St Andrew’s Church at 7pm, vocal and instrumental early-music ensemble La Nuova Musica will present a staged performance of Handel and Gay’s Acis And Galatea, directed by counter-tenor and founder David Bates.

Harpist Sally Pryce performs the British premiere of Patterson’s Armistice in her 11am programme at Farnley Hall, Otley, on June 19, and the experimental vocal trio Juice take in classical, world, jazz, pop and folk music in their avant-garde set of largely original and improvised pieces at Stockeld Park Chapel on June 20 at 11am.

Central African-inspired riffs, sung percussion, ethereal harmonies and growling drones all play a part in the Juice mix.

Also on June 20, at St Andrew’s Church at 7.30pm, the Rhodes Piano Trio – at present Chamber Music Fellows at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama – play trio pieces by Haydn, Brahms and Ravel.

The Pavao String Quartet has two engagements at this month’s festival, the first being a 7.30pm programme of Mozart and Weber Clarinet Quintets with Ensemble 360 clarinettist Matthew Hunt at St Andrew’s Church on June 21.

The next morning, at 11am, the Pavao musicians play “complex, breathtaking” versions of Hollywood standards such as That’s Entertainment and Moon River in their Someone To Watch Over Me concert at Swinton Park. Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt’s 7.30pm recital at St Andrew’s Church on June 22 is billed as “one of the most hotly anticipated classical events in North Yorkshire this summer”.

She is undertaking a ten-year project to record all the major keyboard works of J S Bach, whose English Suite No 2 in A minor will be complemented by two Beethoven sonatas and three Brahms Intermezzi.

The Last Night Outdoor Concert in the grounds of Aldborough Manor on June 23 features St Aidan’s Swing Band at 7.30pm, tribute act Re-Take That at 9pm and fireworks at 10.45ppm. Gates open at 6pm.

For tickets, phone 01423 900979 or visit aldboroughfestival.com