Music Festival back with a bang

St John's Choir will be in full voice for the Cambridge Music Festival

They say the best things come in threes. Three years that is.

The last Cambridge Musical Festival was in 2006 so it is just as well there is a whole month of music to help catch up on all that lost time.

From 8 November the city will be overrun with melody. There is busking at bus stops, concerts in colleges and everything else in between.

BBC Cambridgeshire is involved. Find out more on Antonia Brickell's Drive and Mandy Morton's Eclectic Light Show.

DNA music

There is an evolutionary feel to this year's festivities. It is Charles Darwin's 200th birthday this year, in case you had not heard.

So not only are organisers exploring how music has gone through the process of natural selection, they are letting you make songs using DNA and taste the beats and sounds Darwin would have encountered on his famous HMS Beagle voyage.

Elin Manahan Thomas has performed with the Cambridge Singers

Toddlers can get their first taste of the finer side of music with orchestral performances.

The Festival's education team will be flocking to Addenbrooke's Hospital and 800 years of Cambridge University will be celebrated with the return of some of its talented alumni.

After being involved for 20 years it is director Gillian Perkins's last festival at the helm.

She said: "The other day I dug out the programme for the first Cambridge Music Festival I organised, way back in 1991.

"I was stunned to be reminded that back then we did virtually no work in schools, no free events, no concerts for people in hospitals or retirement centres, no concerts with young children performing, and only a very few events geared for families to come to.

"How things have changed."

The Cambridge Music Festival runs from 8 - 29 November, 2009. You can find out prices, times and more details at the Cambridge Music Festival website