Bellot Ensemble

Bellot Ensemble play the National Centre for Early Music on Friday 4 December, as part of the York Early Music Christmas Festival. It's an early-evening concert, running from 6.30pm to around 7.45pm, so you're out well before the night really sets in.

The ensemble's set is titled The English Night, and it takes its cue from the hours after dark, when public ceremony gives way to quieter forms of listening. Rather than a carol concert, it's something more inward for the festival opening: a winter evening of consort music, song and dance, alive to the season without losing the strange, vivid character of a repertory that runs from Lawes and Jenkins to Locke and Purcell. A critic called it 'heartfelt and tender, fiery and passionate'.

The concert sits within the York Early Music Christmas Festival, which was created in 1997 to introduce audiences to the wealth of music associated with Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, from the Medieval to the Baroque, intertwined with the sagas, stories and tales of the north. The festival is run by The York Early Music Foundation, a registered charity.

Reserved seating is £23, or £21 if you book in advance, and under 35s pay £10. The music starts at 6.30pm and wraps up around 7.45pm.