STARS of this year’s Machynlleth Festival will include Dame Anne Evans, acclaimed as one of the greatest dramatic sopranos of the past 50 years.

She will give a concert in the festival’s Tabernacle venue on Friday, August 23, after running two open masterclasses earlier in the day, with hand-picked young singers from the Birmingham Conservatoire.

The eight day festival opens on Sunday, August 18, with the traditional Cymanfa Ganu congregational singing festival of sacred hymns.

This year’s free Tuesday children’s concert will feature with local artist Aeron Pughe as the pirate Ben Dant with other characters from the S4C children’s TV show ‘Cyw’.

There will be a Wednesday morning open-air concert taking place in the middle of town, outside the Wynnstay Hotel, with a traditional Welsh harp and folk band, plus Edryd Williams singing.

The open air concert will also feature the versatile and prize winning She’Koyokh Klezmer band who will also play the Wednesday night concert on August 21.

Other festival performers will include pianist Eirian Owen, tenors Rhys Meirion and Aled Wyn Davies, soprano Meinir Wyn Roberts, saxophonist Jes Gillam, cellist Camille Thomas, pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin, soprano Elin Manahan Thomas, and The Piatti Quartet.

The box office is open on 01654 703355 for all shows, with a reserved seat season ticket also available for £200.

The festival season is in full swing with the Hay Festivals still on to June 2; the Welshpool Poetry Festival weekend starting next Friday, June 7; the Montgomeryshire Literary Festival weekend starting at Gregynog Hall, Tregynon, on Friday, June 14 and the Gregynog Festival and many others coming up this summer.