ONCE again the Presteigne Festival of Music and the Arts is set to take centre stage in Radnorshire over the August Bank Holiday weekend (August 24-29).

The festival will feature more than 30 events, of which 16 are concerts, including talks, children's events, composers in conversation, exhibitions, a poetry reading and a guided walk.

Venues include St Andrew's Church in Presteigne and village churches and halls nestling in the countryside of the surrounding Welsh Marches.

Musical themes for 2006 include an important survey of Baltic music with world-renowned Latvian composer-in-residence Peteris Vasks.

The festival marks the 30th anniversary of Benjamin Britten's death with performances of the complete Canticles, two of the string quartets, and the Serenade for tenor, horn and string orchestra.

There are also five works by the founding light and first artistic director of the festival, Adrian Williams - who celebrates his 50th birthday this year.

Despite continually widening its artistic range, the festival always makes a point of programming great works from the past, and this year will be no different with music by C P E Bach, J S Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, Faure, Finzi, Haydn, Kodaly, Frank Martin, Mozart, Shostakovich, Stravinsky and Vivaldi.

Well-known for its continued promotion of contemporary music, the festival is once again commissioning and premiering new music from a wide variety of today's talented composers. James Francis Brown is writing a new concertante piece for string trio and string orchestra, Huw Watkins and Adrian Williams have been asked for solo harp pieces and Thomas Hyde is engaged on a set of short Nocturnes for solo piano.

There is also the premiere of a new song from Geraint Lewis and a further song-cycle from John Joubert, based on his earlier contribution to the Garland for Presteigne (a cycle of 12 songs by 10 composers, premiered in 2003).

The artist list for the 2006 festival includes many international performers and the renowned Presteigne Festival Orchestra - hand-picked from some of the UK's finest young professionals - will perform under the direction of the festival's artistic director, George Vass.

For further information visit the website www.presteignefestival. com or call for a brochure on 01544 267800.