ONCE again, as music lovers have come to expect, this year's Dore Abbey Music Festival welcomes a musician with an international reputation.

John Lill, CBE, whose concert career spans more than 50 years, has been described as the leading British pianist of his generation, and on Friday, he will be giving a Celebrity Piano Recital in the medieval surroundings of the abbey.

On the programme will be Mozart's Sonata in F, K332; Beethoven's Sonata in F Minor, Op 57 (Appassionata); Chopin's Polonaise in F Minor, Op 44 and Schumann's Carnaval, Op 9.

Since his first piano recital at the age of nine, John Lill's career has taken him all over the world as both a recitalist and a soloist with the world's great orchestras, with a repertoire that includes more than 70 concertos.

Having recorded extensively with Deutsche Grammophon, EMI and ASV, his most recent recordings have been the 60th birthday release of piano works by Schummann on the Classics for Pleasure label and a new release for Signum Records of Schumann and Brahms.

Following Friday's Celebrity Concert, Saturday sees the 14th Concert for Craswall, now an integral part of the weekend's programme.

This year's concert centres on works by two of the most-loved classical composers - Haydn and Mozart - but it will open with the Overture to Samson by another favourite, Handel.

The central work will be Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante in E Flat for violin and viola, with sisters Fiona and Vanessa McNaught taking the solo parts.

Two short pieces by English composers Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett follow the interval, before returning to the classics with Haydn's Symphony number 51 in B flat which has spectacular soaring music for the horns, to be played by Craswall Players regulars Keith Maries and Charles Clark-Maxwell.

Sunday's concert takes the form of a school prom, with instrumental music played by students from Lady Hawkins' High School, in the band founded by Dave Rogers, then pastoral head of the lower school, when children joining the school in Year 7 were in need of a greater musical challenge than the usual progression from recorder to flute or clarinet.

"So I set about providing them with simple harmonies of old dance tunes, the challenge being the pace they were played at, rather than the musical technicalities," says Dave.

"Classical concerts are new to us," says Dave, now deputy head. "But the chance to play in Dore Abbey is just too good to miss."

Celebrity Piano Recital by John Lill, CBE, is on Friday at 7.30pm; Concert for Craswall on Saturday at 7.30pm; School Prom is on Sunday at 3pm.

For Dore Abbey Music Festival information, contact 01981 570251 or 01873 821456 or visit www.doreabbey.org.uk For details of the Concert for Craswall, call 01981 510332.