AN award-winning Dales festival has launched its 2018 brochure, with organisers hailing it as the ‘most ambitious yet’.

The Swaledale Festival takes place this summer with an international line-up featuring acclaimed performers such as The Hallé, Welsh harpist Catrin Finch with Senegalese kora virtuoso Seckou Keita and Syrian musician Maya Youssef, among many others.

The festival’s artistic director Malcolm Creese, said the line-up represented the event’s most ambitious to date.

The music programme will be complemented by a broad offering of theatre, poetry, dance, comedy and film as well as a multitude of family events, workshops, art exhibitions, talks and guided walks.

Mathematician Marcus du Sautoy will give the tenth ‘Reeth Lecture’- fittingly in Reeth - and, as always, the festival will feature lots of local performers, including brass bands, choirs, youth dancers, a theatre group and exhibitions by visual artists.

Events take place in venues all over Swaledale, Wensleydale and Arkengarthdale - from village churches, chapels and halls to theatres, cinemas and arts centres.

The 2018 Swaledale Festival runs from May 26 to June 9 and online bookings open on March 26 with details at swalefest.org