A Shepherd's Tale - Les saisons d'un cœur pastoral

Allyn Wu brings A Shepherd's Tale to the National Centre for Early Music on Saturday 12 December, as part of the York Early Music Christmas Festival. It's a midday concert, running from 12:30pm to around 1:30pm, so it's one of those easy-to-fit-in Saturday afternoon things rather than a late night.

The programme, A Shepherd's Tale – Les saisons d'un cœur pastoral, is presented in association with Le Poème Harmonique. It weaves together stories of innocence, desire, betrayal and acceptance through music by Purcell, Dowland, Charpentier and Moulinié, with instrumental interludes by Couperin and Marais. It's a broad sweep of early music, pulling from the English and French traditions and moving between the vocal and the instrumental.

Wu fronts the performance, joined by Sergio Bucheli on archlute and Guillaume Haldenwang on harpsichord. Wu is a baroque vocal prize-winner, having won the Concours Corneille, the baroque vocal competition organised every two years in Normandy by Le Poème Harmonique. The festival itself was started in 1997 to bring audiences the music associated with Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, from the Medieval to the Baroque, tied in with the sagas, stories and tales of the north.

Tickets are £15 for unreserved seating, with a £10 price for under-35s, and mince pies are included on arrival. It runs from 12:30pm to about 1:30pm at the National Centre for Early Music in York.