POP LEGENDS Beverley Craven and Judie Tzuke will headline this year’s Petworth Festival, which consists of 45 events over 18 days from July 13 to 30.

Festival director Stewart Collins is hugely enthusiastic about the prospects for a superbly-varied and inventive festival to build on the momentum of recent years.

He said: “We are once again bringing a range of events to Petworth and the locality that is the measure of any of the region’s top celebrations of the arts and performance in all their many beautiful guises.”

The festival also features classical, jazz, traditional and world music, comedy, theatre, family entertainment and the visual arts.

The line-up includes cellist and former BBC Young Musician of the Year Natalie Clein, trombonist Christian Lindberg, violinist Dmitry Sitkovetsky, comedians Milton Jones and Henry Normal, guitarists Sean Shibe, Dave Kelly, Juan Martín, Jon Gomm and Antonio Forcione, and pianists Ben Waters, Steven Osborne, Piers Lane, Iain Burnside and Alim Beisembayev, winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition.

Much more is new including environmental themed theatre and dance for the family, and concerts in the classy showrooms of Fittleworth’s Sofas and Stuff featuring husband-and-wife pairing Julian and Jiaxin Lloyd Webber.

Events tying in with the Culture Spark summer of activities in Chichester district include a lantern-making project and parade with pupils from nine schools in association with The Arts Society of West Sussex, a promenade theatre production of Wind in the Willows at the Coultershaw Heritage Site, a choral pilgrimage by vocal group The Gesualdo Six in Easebourne, Graffham and Petworth, and a free family day in the Pleasure Garden of Petworth House in association with the National Trust.

The box office opens on May 13. For tickets call 01798 344576 or visit www.petworthfestival.org.uk