THE final of the York Early Music Festival's International Young Artists Competition will take place tomorrow at the National Centre for Early Music, York.

Musicians from Great Britain, the United States, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Germany and Switzerland will be competing in the sold-out 10am to 5.30pm event, hosted by soprano and BBC Radio 3 broadcaster Catherine Bott.

Amsterdam Corelli Collective, from the Netherlands, will perform Lighting A Candle, Casting A Shadow, music for a string orchestra by Locatelli and CPE Bach; Consone Quartet (UK), The Father, Haydn's String Quartet in F minor; and Diapason (USA), A Viennese Portrait, music for cello and fortepiano by Moschelles, Franz Xaver, Mozart and Woflf.

Ensemble Ancor (Austria) will present O Rosa Bella, a portrait of love in medieval and Renaissance times, featuring music for recorder consort by De Rore, Crecquillon, Henry VIII, Ciconia and Clemens non Papa; Il Giorno Felice (Poland), Between France and Italy, music for recorder, cello and harpsichord by Frescobaldi, Boismortier, Leclair and Falconiero; Les Touches (USA), Cosmopolitan Artefacts, duos for bass viols by Schenk, Boismortier and Christopher Simpson; and Nexus Baroque (Germany), In Stil Moderno, music for two recorders, cello and harpsichord by Merula, Castello and William Williams.

Royal Baroque (UK) will focus on Telemann In Paris, featuring Telemann's Paris Quartet No 6 in E minor; The Scroll Ensemble (Netherlands), Bach's Workshop, improvisations for violin, recorder, oboe and harpsichord inspired by works by Bach and Vivaldi; and Sollazzo Ensemble (Switzerland), Fiddle-Players At The Court Of Burgundy, 15th-century music for voices and instruments by Binchois, Dunstaple, Agricola, Dufay and Compère.

This biennial competition is recognised as an international platform for emerging talent in the early music world and offers a boost to professional careers with opportunities for performance, recording and broadcasting.

Yesterday and today, from 10.30am to 4pm, five ensembles each day present a short, informal recital under the guidance of Catherine Bott. Her role is to introduce the ensembles to the audience and guide them through the days leading up to tomorrow's competition, when they will give their final recital in front of an international panel of judges.

The 2015 judges will be violinist and festival artistic advisor Kati Debretzeni; singer and scholar Sally Dunkley; Philip Hobbs, of Linn Records; Daniel Bizeray, director general of Centre Culturel de rencontre d'Ambronay, and Peter Pontvik, director of Stockholm Early Music Festival and president of REMA, the European early music festival network.

The winners will be announced at the end of the afternoon and will receive a £1,000 cheque; a professional CD recording contract from Linn Records; and opportunities to work with BBC Radio 3 and the National Centre for Early Music.

This year too, one European ensemble will be awarded a place on the first year of the EEEmerging: Emerging European Ensembles programme, a large-scale European co-operation project that promotes the emergence of new talent in early music.

Recital highlights from the competition will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3's Early Music Show on July 26 at 2pm. A video recording of tomorrow's recitals will be available online at ncem.co.uk after the event.