Baritone Jeremy Huw Williams has had to withdraw from the York Late Music concert on April 2 for contractual reasons.

“Fortunately, baritone Robert Rice and pianist William Vann will step in to take on a very challenging workload,” says Late Music director Steve Crowther.

“This is mainly due to the continuing York Songbook project, where Late Music composers set poems by York Literature Festival writers such as Don Walls, Daniela Nunnari, Rose Drew and David Irwin Phillips.”

The 7.30m programme at the Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York, also will include songs by Thomas Ades, John Adams and Jonathan Harvey, as well as a pre-concert talk by David Power at 6.45pm and an interval poetry reading by Don Walls.

The Late Music series of First Saturday concerts will resume after December’s snow-enforced postponements with the Bridge Duo on March 5 at 7.30pm. Matthew Jones, viola and violin, and Michael Hampton, piano, will play Paul Patterson’s Tides Of Manan; Steve Crowther’s All Tangled Up In Blue; the world premiere of David Power’s Platinum 1 and 2; and works by Michael Nyman and Michael Parkin.

Composer Rolf Hind will give an informal pre-concert talk at 6.45pm, ahead of the premiere of Breath Of Fire, his new work for solo viola.

“Hosting the first performance of Rolf Hind’s work is a real coup for York Late Music,” says Steve. “My piece, meanwhile, was written in memory of a friend, Stewart Hamblin; we were both big Dylan fans.”

Tickets are available online at latemusic.org or on the door.