YORK Early Music Festival 2004 opens next Friday with its dual focus on the music of Heinrich Biber and Marc Antoine Charpentier.

Both died 300 years ago, prompting the festival administrative director Delma Tomlin to organise a raft of anniversary concerts. "Come and enjoy their distinctive styles: the Austrian Biber's virtuoso string pieces and Charpentier's Gallic grace," says Delma.

The Biber strand begins with the Gabrieli Consort and Players' concert next Friday in the Central Nave of York Minster at 7.30pm, when Biber's Requiem in F minor forms the centrepiece of A Requiem For Ignaz Franz Von Biber.

The festival's biggest coup is to bring together Andrew Manze, Monica Huggett and Pavlo Beznosiuk for a series of candle-lit concerts featuring the complete cycle of Biber's Rosary Sonatas.

"We can rival any festival in Europe with this piece of programming; there are no better players than these three to perform these Biber works," says Delma.

Manze's concert of Biber's The Five Joyful Mysteries, is at the National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, on July 5 at 10pm, while his earlier coffee concert, Inside The Rosary on July 5 at 10.30am, has been moved from Bedern Hall to the Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, to meet ticket demand. Harpsichordist Richard Egarr will accompany him at both.

Huggett plays Biber's The Five Sorrowful Mysteries at the NCEM on July 8 at 10pm, and Beznosiuk is joined by Paula Chateauneuf, on theorbo, and David Roblou, on harpsichord, for The Five Glorious Mysteries at the Unitarian Chapel on July 9 at 9.30pm.

The Biber theme concludes with the festival's closing concert, on July 10 at 7.30pm in The Citadel, Gillygate, where Ensemble 415 and their leader Chiara Banchini present Sacro-Profanum, sacred and secular instrumental music from the time of Biber.

The focus on Charpentier and the musical heritage of France begins on July 5 with Binchois Consort's 7.30pm programme of sacred music from 15th century Burgundy by Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois in the Chapter House of York Minster.

Ensemble Clement Janequin, whose latest album was the Disc of the Month in the May issue of Gramophone magazine, presents Les Plaisirs du Palais at Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, on July 6 at 7.30pm. In the French ensemble's line-up will be countertenor Dominique Visse. "He's rather a fashionable name at the moment, so we're delighted to be bringing him to York," says Delma.

Sonnerie's 8pm programme of music from Louis XIV's Versailles court, led by Monica Huggett in The Gallery at Harewood House on July 7, has sold out. The Dufay Collective captures the thrills of medieval France in Dansas, Dance Songs of the Troubadours, in The Quire of York Minster on July 8 at 7.30pm.

One concert of particular local note will be the Rose Consort of Viols' Chansons Et Fantasies, a 1pm selection of French Renaissance music stored in York Minster Library, on July 7 at the NCEM.

A third principal strand to the festival will be the Have A Go events, which places the focus on local participation. These start with 2pm and 7.30pm performances of Renaissance, a play with music by Paul Birch and Cathryn Dew, presented by children from St Mary's Primary School, Askham Richard, at the NCEM on July 2.

Celebrating Alcuin, a free workshop exploring the work of the York monk, will be run by poet Antony Dunn and artist Gemma Cumming, at the NCEM from 10.30am to 4.30pm on July 4.

The Minster Minstrels, the York Early Music Ensemble, performs Chantez Et Dansez!, an afternoon of French music and dance at the NCEM on July 10 at 4pm. What better way to kick up a song and a dance at a festival?

York Early Music Festival 2004 runs from July 2 to 10. Box office: 01904 658338.

Updated: 16:08 Thursday, June 24, 2004