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. 2009 features the chamber music of the 19th and early 20th century in Vienna. Guest performers include Jane Manning, the Endellion Quartet and prize-winning Navarra Quartet and Heath Quartet, Rhodes Piano Trio and the Sheffield-based Ensemble 360 which comprises the Elias (formerly Johnston) Quartet, piano, bas and wind. RNCM singers will feature in a Schubertiade. Composers include Brahms, Korngold and Zemlinsky and Jane Manning will perform Pierrot Lunaire. The programme runs from lunchtime on Thursday 8th until late on Sunday but there is no need to attend every event. For full programme please call.

Rooms have been reserved from Wednesday 7th 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 be be missed.

On Wednesday evening there will be the opportunity to attend a performance at the Bridgewater Hall by the National Youth Orchestra conducted by Semyon Bychkov performing Berio's Sinfonia and Strauss' An Alpine Symphony.

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."