WYE Valley Chamber Music Festival was established to bring world-class chamber music to beautiful and intimate venues up and down the Wye Valley, and now returns for its 17th year. Since its inaugural year, when founders Daniel Tong and Fiona McNaught brought a group of young musicians on a ‘chamber music retreat’ to St Briavels Castle, the organisation has become an important year-round cultural presence in the Wye Valley. In 2015 it expanded to include a Summer Residency, inviting young ensembles to rehearse and perform with professional tutors for a week in July.

The main festival takes place every January when around 25 leading chamber musicians take up residence in Treowen Manor near Monmouth for a week. The musicians live and work together for the duration of the festival, emerging to perform concerts in historic venues in the local area, including the Bishop's Palace in Hereford on Sunday, when teacher Gabriel Fauré and pupil Maurine Ravel unite for a day of Parisian masterpieces.

Several strands of programming interweave in this year's festival, which highlights musical friendships - for full details and to book, visit wyevalleyfestival.com.

This year, The Ruisi Quartet will be an invigorating presence as quartet in residence. Rosalind Ventris and Yura Lee join the festival for the first time and Tim Crawford returns, having been a member of the Celan Quartet in 2013 and 2014. Other artists travel from as far afield as Barcelona, Berlin, Stockholm, Glasgow and Cardiff.

For further information and to book tickets, please visit wyevalleyfestival.com