THE music of the baroque is some of the most engaging, moving and enjoyable of any classical music era. Shaftesbury Arts Centre celebrates this colourful musical genre at a festival which runs from Wednesday 22nd to Sunday 26th January, with a programme of recitals, talks and film.

What and who do you think of when someone says “baroque”: harpsichords, violins, sparkling harmonies, complex vocal fireworks? The great composers of the period, roughly 1600 to 1750, include Vivaldi, Purcell, Bach, Handel, Haydn and more.

It was an era of dramatic political and social upheaval, and enormous cultural, artistic and musical creativity and innovation, including Jacobean and Restoration dramas, huge developments in painting and some of the greatest English verse ever written, by poets such as Pope and Donne.

The Shaftesbury Festival of Baroque features ten events, all in the daytime, with concerts by musicians and singers who are experts in the baroque tradition, on authentic period instruments.

As well as the arts centre, the venues include St Peter‘s church and the Grosvenor Hotel Assembly Room.

The festival opens with Bright Morning, Baroque Trio Sonatas with the Salisbury Chamber Ensemble, on Wednesday from 11am, followed by a Battle of the Poets, from 2pm, with Catherine Simmonds, Rosie King, Deborah Jones and Robert Mules speaking for Aphra Behn, John Donne, Robert Herrick and Alexander Pope, with the audience voting for the best.

On Thursday morning at 11am, there is a workshop, Music: Bach And Beyond, with cellist Emily Burridge and Emma-Marie Kabanova, baroque violin. In the afternoon, from 2pm, Emma-Marie Kabanova will give a solo recital of music for unaccompanied baroque violin by Bach, Quantz and Telemann, alongside some of her own compositions. Later that afternoon, at 3.30pm, Nigel Wyatt will give a talk on the social and cultural life of 18th century Shaftesbury by Nigel Wyatt.

Friday’s events begin at 11am with Eden Baroque playing Music for a While – with Michael Sanderson, baritone, baroque violin and viola, and Katharine May on harpsichord, playing works by Dowland, Purcell, Handel and Haydn.

In the afternoon, at 3pm, there is a screening of the film England, My England, the life story of the great 17th century English composer Henry Purcell, played by Michael Ball, told through the research of the actor Simon Callow.

On Saturday, at 11am, Emily Burridge will give a recital, JS Bach’s Timeless Treasure, his first Cello Suite. Over lunchtime, from 12.30, there is a concert, Petrichore, Music of Life and Love by Wessex Baroque Collective.

The festival ends on Sunday 26th at 3pm with members of Salisbury Baroque in a concert called The Female Muse, baroque music by woman composers.