There will be a host of live performances for this year’s Canterbury Festival next month, which is going ahead in a socially-distanced, slightly scaled down way from Saturday, October 17 to Saturday, October 31.

Kent’s International Arts Festival will present a programme showcasing the best in live music, performance, talks, and science with safety measures to reduce risk and ensure that social distancing is observed.

Festival organisers have held their nerve through lockdown to become the first major arts festival in the south east to go ahead with live events since the country went into lockdown.

The programme contains 50 events - compared to the usual 200 - it still caters for tastes from improvised theatre and acrobatics, to choral music and comedy. There will also be a family programme for October half term, Artists’ Open Houses, guided walks and talks.

Award-winning choir Tenebrae launch this year’s festival with the Sounds of Solstice at Canterbury Cathedral on Saturday, October 17 - the first musical event in the cathedral since lockdown.

The cathedral will also host Joglaresa with Boogie Knights – an energetic romp through medieval Europe’s funkiest tunes.

Pianist Joanna MacGregor will deliver eight concerts over three days, performing all of Beethoven’s 32 sonatas at Shirley Hall, celebrating the composer’s 250th birthday and Stephen Barlow will conduct the Festival Chamber Orchestra.

And BBC Radio 2 Folk Award finalists and local heroes – Gentlemen of Few - will close this year’s festival with their fusion of bluegrass, folk and rock.

General booking opens today at 11am. To book tickets and see the full line-up visit canterburyfestival.co.uk

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