This year’s Suffolk Villages Festival will be staging a special crossover project that should interest lovers of Folk as well as Early Music enthusiasts.

Run by Colchester-based artistic director Peter Holman, the festival continues its adventurous explorations of early music, featuring a mixture of star international performers and the best local talent.

But new for this year is a chance to discover the magic of Welsh traditional music.

On Sunday, August 26 at 9.45pm in the Fleece in Boxford renowned violinist Patrick Rimes and his new musical trio, Kannig are giving the first of two concerts of Welsh traditional music.

Kannig (old Welsh for ‘they sing’) is an exciting new crossover venture in which Welsh traditional music meets early music.

Patrick Rimes is a rising star, with a foot in both camps. He is a member of the leading Welsh folk group Calan and has acted as musical director for a number of famous names, including Bryn Terfel and Cerys Matthews, but he is also a regular member of a number of orchestras and period instrument groups, including the John Jenkins Consort.

As well as Patrick Kannig features the triple harp (a vernacular survivor of the Baroque instrument), played by its leading exponent Sioned Webb, and Arfon Gwilyn, one of the best known and influential singers of the ‘Cerdd Dant’ style of traditional Welsh singing.

Kannig will also be giving a lecture recital, The Roots of Welsh Traditional Music, in St Peter’s Sudbury the following morning, Monday August 27, at 11am, in which the musical tradition will be explored and explained.

The Suffolk Villages Festival takes place over the weekend of August 24 to 27, starting with a concert of Monteverdi Courtly Ballets featuring such internationally renowned soloists as Claire Coleman, Helen Charlston, Daniel Auchincloss and Nick Webb.

That takes place at St Peter’s Church in Sudbury, as does the finale, when soprano Philippa Hyde, countertenor James Hall, and tenor Daniel Auchincloss perform works by Purcell and Handel with Psalmody and the Essex Baroque Orchestra directed by Peter Holman.

For more information on the rest of the festival, or to book tickets, click here