Chamber music, solo artists, duos and ensembles playing classical, traditional and world music can be heard in Powys this week, as the Machynlleth Festival 2019 continues.

All concerts take place in the historic Tabernacle and highlights of the festival, which started on Sunday and continues until this Sunday (25 August), include saxophonist Jess Gillam, a masterclass from Dame Anne Evans and a festival debut from great pianist Marc-André Hamelin.

Speaking before the start of the festival, director Julius Drake said: “I am very much looking forward to this year’s Machynlleth Festival, surrounded by the beautiful green mountains and valleys of mid Wales.

“We will be welcoming some of the finest musicians from around the world, stars in the musical firmament, and I know we will have a glorious week of great music making.”

Machynlleth on Wednesdays bustles with the market which has been running there for some 700 years, and this Wednesday (21 August) at 11am, the Klezmer band She’Koyokh will be popping up outside the Wynnstay Hotel for the festival’s first ever outdoor event – free to all market-goers.

She’Koyokh then give the evening concert at 7.30pm with klezmer and traditional music from the Balkans to Turkey.

The sensational Jess Gillam, the young saxophonist who closed the 2018 BBC Proms, is a Classical Brit Award-winner, the first ever saxophonist to be signed by Decca and the first ever saxophonist to have reached the final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year.

She makes her Machynlleth debut in recital with Zeynep Özsuca, piano, at 1pm on Thursday, 22 August, playing music from the 18th century to the brand new.

Rising star French-Belgian cellist Camille Thomas plays an exquisite programme with pianist Julius Drake of Schumann, Brahms, Messiaen and Franck – also on Thursday, 22 August, at 7.30pm.

Dame Anne Evans, one of the most renowned dramatic sopranos of our time gives a masterclass with young singers from the UK conservatoires in The Tannery from 10.30am to 4.30pm on Friday, 23 August, culminating in a concert at 5pm in The Tabernacle.

Dame Anne then appears in conversation with the writer and broadcaster Christopher Cook at 6pm.

The great international pianist Marc-André Hamelin comes to Machynlleth for the first time in a concert including Bach, Schubert and Liszt at 7.30pm on Friday, 23 August.

The astonishing story of the Welsh settlers in Patagonia is the theme of the first of two late-night concerts by candlelight at 10pm on Friday, 23 August.

The Welsh-Argentine guitar duo of Adam Khan and Luis Orias Diz perform tangos from Buenos Aries and works by Stephen Goss, Dafydd Bullock, Piazzolla and Ginastera.

Welsh soprano Elin Manahan Thomas and harpsichord player Alastair Ross present a programme celebrating the 400th anniversary of Barbara Strozzi’s birth, along with music of two of Strozzi’s main influences and contemporaries, Monteverdi and Carissimi. This is at 1pm on Saturday, 24 August.

The Piatti Quartet perform at 7.30pm on Saturday, 24 August, in a programme of Purcell, Mendelssohn and Beethoven.

Staying with strings, this is followed by another concert by candlelight at 10pm, with Priya Mitchell on violin, Nathan Braude on viola and Brian O’Kane. They play violinist Dmitri Sitkovetsky’s exquisite transcription of Bach’s Goldberg Variations for string trio.

The young Russian pianist Pavel Kolesnikov gives the final lunchtime recital at 1pm on Sunday, 25 August, with Bartok, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy and Schumann.

The festival closes on Sunday, 25 August, at 7.30pm with a ‘Shakespeare Miscellany’ by acclaimed counter tenor Robin Blaze, Elizabeth Kenny on lute/theorbo and narrator Simon Robson.

They present Shakespeare’s words alongside songs by his contemporaries, including John Dowland, Thomas Morley and Robert Johnson.

For more of what’s on in your area, see this week’s Cambrian News, in shops on Wednesday