THE University of York Baroque Day, Enlightenment and Invention, will open the May and June programme at the National Centre for Early Music, York, on May 5.

The massive social upheaval of the “century of lights”, the 1700s, was reflected in the major developments of musical style and taste, now reflected in three concerts that highlight the newly emergent string quartet and symphony, as well as music for the most popular keyboard instrument of the day.

At 12.30pm, Compagnia d’Istrumenti will present music by Telemann, Richter, Mozart and Haydn under the programme title of Towards The String Quartet; at 3pm, fortepianist Kemp English will play works by Mozart, Schubert and Kozeluch; at 7pm, the University Baroque Ensemble will round off the day with Towards The Symphony, featuring pieces by Mozart, WF Bach and Haydn.

As part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival's scheme to take silent film with live music to cinemas, village halls and theatres around Yorkshire every May, Film@NCEM will present a double bill on May 13. First up, at 4pm, will be Another Fine Mess! (U), a triple bill of “three of the craziest” Laurel and Hardy short films, accompanied by a live band. Look out for the biggest custard pie fight ever filmed in Battle Of The Century.

At 6.30pm, harpist Elizabeth-Jane Baldry will accompany Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans (U), an American film from 1927 made by the great German director FW Murnau, creator of the ground-breaking Nosferatu. Lured to work in Hollywood in 1926, he filmed an intimate, emotionally complex story that was combined with beautiful camerawork. Sunrise duly won three Oscars at the inaugural Academy Awards in 1929.

Do you recall the Canadian powerhouse folk band Tanglefoot playing the NCEM twice around a decade ago? Surviving members Steve Ritchie, guitar, Rob Ritchie, keyboards, and Al Parrish, bass, will be joined by percussionist Beaker Granger at the NCEM on May 30 when Ritchie Parrish Ritchie will “echo the Tanglefoot legacy while expanding the envelope”.

Two concerts for the York Festival of Ideas will be staged at the NCEM. Firstly, on June 7, the University of York vocal ensemble The 24 will take part in a day of exploring the ideas of the Elizabethan composer William Byrd, whose treatise on the health benefits of singing ring true today.

Running from 10am to 4pm, the day takes the title of William Byrd’s Elizabethan Vision On The Value Of Singing and will use performances and group participation demonstrations to consider new insights into the health and wellbeing benefits of singing, supported by contemporary research and practical illustrations.

The day will be led by Professor Stephen Clift, director of the Sidney de Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health at Canterbury Christ Church University, and associate director Vivien Ellis, working with Robert Hollingworth and The 24, among others.

Avant-English folk trio You Are Wolf will present their second album Keld in concert on June 8. The line-up comprises award-winning composer, singer and University of York graduate Kerry Andrew, multi-instrumentalist Sam Hall and percussionist Peter Ashwell, who refract traditional songs and stories through bold arrangements influenced by leftfield pop, electronica and new classical music.

Keld, an old northern English word meaning “the deep, still , smooth part of a river", comprises old and new songs celebrating freshwater folklore, including waterfall banshees, vengeful rivers, skinny-dipping and Anglo-Saxon charms. Field-recorded water, tuned wine glasses and Central African-inspired pipes combine with trad English folk song to create You Are Wolf’s new sound.

In a third Festival of Ideas event, on June 9 at 11am, Film@NCEM will present AnDa Union: From The Steppes To The City (PG), a 2012 British film directed by Sophie Lascelles and Tim Pearce. In a rare insight into a forgotten land and nomadic life on the furthest edges of China, home to more than six million Mongolians, the film follows AnDa Union, a ten-strong group of young musicians, as they travel through the beautiful grasslands of inner Mongolia.

Lascelles and Pearce celebrate their music and culture, from wild parties to moving stories of their sacrifices, from a pastoral life to the harsh realities of the city, as haunting throat singing and long song with horse-head fiddles and two-string lutes bring ancient music to new life.

Jazz saxophonist, clarinettist and bass clarinettist Alan Barnes and pianist David Newton have been playing duets for 40 years, covering a vast repertoire from Louis Armstrong to Chick Corea. On June 30, they promise a programme of straight-ahead jazz, marked by their interplay, coupled with anecdotes and humour.

The NCEM's Family Friendly programme will welcome Opera North to York to perform The Kingdom Under The Sea, a show for age three upwards, at 11.30am, 1pm and 2.30pm on March 11. This storytelling performance in a magical tent is inspired by Japanese folk stories and Opera North's production of Madam Butterfly, taking the audience on a magical adventure to the bottom of the ocean and the majestic palace of the Dragon King.

The Empty Chair, a mischievous musical adventure for six year olds and upwards on May 6 at 11.30am, will explore how people and friendships grow and change. When, out of nowhere, a mysterious empty chair appears bang in the middle of a house, its inhabitants are beyond bewildered. Why does it bring a strange, sizzling silence? Who is the tiptoeing creature full of songs and secrets that longs to help, and what on earth is a Black Hole doing at the front door.

The Empty Chair unfolds through playful storytelling and music for voice, cello and piano, drawn from across the ages to include works by Debussy, Couperin, Berio and Moondog, alongside new music by Troupe.

The show's performers will host a workshop for six year olds upwards at 1.30pm that will look at the themes and music of The Empty Chair, with opportunities to tell your own stories, make your own music and meet the Black Hole. All children must be accompanied by an adult.

Tickets are on sale at ncem.co.uk and on 01904 658338.