THREE concerts at the 2009 York Early Music Festival have sold out already, led off by the opening night’s Carnival Of Carols by The Carnival Band on Wednesday at the National Centre for Early Music.

The ever-entertaining chaotic brilliance of the Carnival Band sets the tone for a festival that runs from December 2 to 8, when it concludes with Being Dufay at the NCEM. This setting of vocal fragments by Guillaume Dufay by York digital artist Ambrose Field will be sung by John Potter, formerly of the Hilliard Ensemble. Behind them will be projected a video commissioned from York designer, artist and photographer Mick Lynch.

While on the theme of Dufay, the second sold-out concert will be given by the Dufay Collective on December 6 at the NCEM, where they will perform cockle-warming carols, Morris dance tunes and ballads for the Christmas season in an evening programme entitled To Drive The Cold Winter Away, Christmas Revels In Renaissance England.

The sold-out trio is completed by Concordia’s A Carowle For Christmas Day, again at the NCEM ,on December 5, when the viol consort are joined by guests Elizabeth Kenny, lute, Robin Blaze, counter tenor, and singers from the University of York Chamber Choir for an Elizabethan Christmas with original Carols by William Byrd.

Further festival highlights include the Parisian Ensemble Gilles Binchois presenting In Nativity, music from the Middle Ages and early Renaissance by candlelight in the medieval Chapter House of York Minster on Thursday; the award-winning orchestra La Serenissima presenting Vivaldi: The French Connection, an evening of concertos for flute, violin, bassoon and strings, at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall next Friday; and the Oberlin Piano Trio with violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch and cellist Jaap ter Linden, celebrating the 200th anniversary of Mendelssohn’s birth, next Saturday at 1pm at the NCEM.

York recorder player Pamela Thorby joins Robin Blaze and Elizabeth Kenny for The Secret Garden, a lunchtime selection of songs, ballads, dances and virtuoso instrumental fantasias deigned for the pleasure gardens of Europe, on Sunday afternoon at the NCEM. This 1pm concert features music written by flute and bell player Jacob Van Eyck and lutenist Nicolaes Vallet.

Joglaresa team up with storyteller Sally Pomme Clayton and three-time All Ireland Fiddle Champion Dermot Crehan for Four Thousand Winters at the NCEM on December 7 in an evening of stories and songs from the north-western fringes of Europe. Be prepared for tales of polar bears, princesses, snow, darkness, frost, firesides, love trickery and some happy-ever-after endings…and no floods.

All concerts start at 7.30pm unless stated. For tickets and brochures, phone 01904 658338 or book online at www.ncem.co.uk