The Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) in Manchester arranges an annual chamber music festival with distinguished visitors and their own students and teachers in a programme of concerts, talks and workshops that attract an enthusiastic audience of all ages. 2010 features the chamber music of the British Isles from Purcell and Byrd to the pastoral romanticism of Elgar and Vaughan Williams to contemporary UK composers including Sally Beamish, Mark-Anthony Turnage and James MacMillan. There will a special focus on the chamber music of Benjamin Britten, with performances of the Canticles and the complete string quartets and, as ever, the festival sets out to uncover some rare gems by lesser-known British composers such as Ernest Moeran and William Alwyn.

Guest performers include the Gould Piano Trio, the Heath, Navarro and Endellion Quartets and a welcome return by the Vertavo Quartet. For full programme please click here.

Rooms have been reserved at our favourite Manchester hotel, built in 1865 as the grandest cloth showcase in the world and with a splendid staircase and chandeliers. It is a brisk walk or short bus ride from the RNCM where all the events take place. A full English breakfast is included and this can be supplemented by the very reasonable catering at the RNCM. Manchester was the first town of the Industrial Revolution and its heritage is now being appreciated and enhanced. On Wednesday afternoon there is a walking tour of the heart of Manchester - the medieval Cathedral, Hanging Bridge and Chetham's Hospital, Charles Barry's City Art Gallery and Athenaeum, now brilliantly linked by Michael Hopkins. The Calatrava Bridge, the People's History Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry are not to be missed.

On Thursday we go by tram to the Lowry Centre at Salford Quays and the Daniel Libeskind Imperial War Museum North before our traditional dim sum lunch at what was described in The Times by Jonathan Meades as "Not only the finest Chinese restaurant in Britain, but one of the finest restaurants in Britain, full stop."