THE Lake District Summer Music Festival gets under way this weekend bringing international performers from around the world to venues across the region.

The two-week programme takes in historic churches and halls in busy market towns, offering the perfect setting for chamber music and orchestral concerts, recitals, music theatre, jazz, vocal works, pre-concert talks, and more. 

LDSM celebrates its 30th festival this year, a chance to hear great music played by world masters in a range of intimate venues all set against the backdrop of the beauty of the Lake District. 

The opening weekend - this Saturday and Sunday - gets under way at the Coronation Hall, in Ulverston, with a performance from the Armonico Consort and Baroque Players. Two baroque masterpieces sung by this popular ensemble, including a piece by Pergolesi and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas - often described as the first English opera. The concert starts at 8pm.

Sunday sees Prokofiev’s epic masterpiece War and Peace screened at Fellinis Cinema, in Ambleside, from 2.30pm, and over at Carver Church, in Windermere, Armonico Consort will be performing Greensleeves , from 3pm - an uplifting celebration of music spanning the length and breadth of the British Isles, featuring new arrangements of the most beautiful folk music ever written.

Ambleside Parish Church welcomes the first celebrity evening recital, at 8pm, with a performance from Ukrainian pianist Vadym Kholodenko. The winner of the Gold Medal at the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition will be playing through a series of pieces from Medtner, Brahms and Schumann.

Tickets for individual events and festival passes, as well as a full programme, can be found at www.ldsm.org.uk