Welcome to our birthday party!

Welcome to our birthday party!

Created in a wave of excitement in 1977, the festival is now established as the premier early music festival in the UK – in turn inspiring the restoration of St Margaret’s Church, York in 2000 and the creation of the National Centre for Early Music.

Drawing in visitors locally, regionally and internationally, the festival is firmly ‘part of the festival world’ and in 2026 we celebrate just how far early music has travelled – beyond the borders of the myriad historic venues of the city – to a world-wide audience.

Opening with Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers presented by I Fagiolini and closing with Solomon’s Knot’s in their extraordinary rendition of Bruhn’s St Mark Passion, internationally acclaimed guests also include The Sixteen, B’Rock Orchestra & Vocal Consort and Imago Mundi. Our Dowland Day on Monday 6, commemorating the 400th anniversary of one of England’s most celebrated composers, invites you into John Dowland’s very particular world of music, poetry and melancholy and later in the week we move to the delicate world of French air de cour inspired by the poetry of love with tenor Paul Agnew, mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston and lutenist Sergio Bucheli.