Inclusivity is key at this year's Lancaster Music Festival

BBC Folk Singer of the Year Ríoghnach Connolly leads the way with many appearances at the festival, which runs from October 13-16.

She has been working with refugees and asylum seekers to form the Sanctuary Singers, who will perform at Lancaster Priory, as well as running singing and songwriting workshops with Dallas Road Primary School pupils.

Ríoghnach herself will perform at The Dukes as part of the Girls Can programme, as well as at busk stops at Lush and King Street Arts, and with Ellis Davies at The Herbarium and Printroom Café at The Storey.

Other sounds from across the world include a Brazilian-themed carnival in Dalton Square and music with a South African, European and Caribbean feel.

The international theme continues with the Songs From Home programme, introduced last year when pandemic restrictions meant foreign acts couldn’t perform so the festival featured musicians from other countries living in the UK or locally.

Lancaster Priory hosts Songs From Home artists including those performing Czech song and flute, Galician fingerstyle guitar, Chinese pipa, violin and piano, and acoustic Welsh folk.

The Storey’s East Meets West programme features dhol drum and Chinese drumming workshops, a pipa masterclass by internationally renowned performer Cheng Yu and performances by Lancaster guitarist Howard Haigh, who has been collaborating with the 12 String Chinese Orchestra, a group of Chinese musicians from Lancaster University.

Meanwhile, Sun Square is the place to be for fans of Celtic sounds as that’s the location of the Craic Inn mobile stage.

More female performers than ever will take part in the festival as it joins a national music industry campaign to achieve 50/50 representation of men and women on festival stages across the country.

More Music's Girls Can takeover at The Dukes, with workshops, panels and performances, is a fantastic opportunity for young women to nurture and develop their musical, technical and professional practice and meet inspirational artists and industry professionals.

And in a first for Lancaster Music Festival, some of its events will be signed after organisers worked with local organisations for the deaf.

Earlier this year, the charity Attitude is Everything, which aims to improve accessibility to live music events and facilities, made a fact finding visit to Lancaster.

As a result, the festival website now highlights where level access, accessible toilets and viewing areas are available with the aim of making accessibility improvements at future events.

Meanwhile, the festival’s smallest venue - Atticus Bookshop, with a maximum audience of 20 - hosts a musical telling of a little-known local mystery; the disappearance of John 'Iron Mad' Wilkinson's body.

Wilkinson was a giant of the Industrial Revolution and wanted to be buried in an iron coffin at Castlehead on the other side of the bay.

This involved the treacherous sand crossing of Morecambe Bay and the start of several unfortunate mishaps ending with the disappearance of the body.

There will be two performances – a preview on October 13 and a show on October 15, both at 8pm.