PURBECK, with its dramatic coastline, is inextricably linked to the sea, and this is the theme of this year’s Purbeck International Chamber Music Festival, from 3rd to 6th September.

Artistic director, and internationally acclaimed cellist, Natalie Clein has chosen this theme because the sea connects and separates, carries memory and myth, and reflects the depths within us.

The festival journeys across waters both real and imagined — from childhood shores and ancestral migrations to Schubert’s flowing streams and the inner storms of the human spirit. Music, words and movement come together in a series of programmes exploring the sea as landscape, metaphor and memory.

Natalie has gathered a remarkable group of internationally renowned musicians to come and make music in Purbeck this year, including Dame Imogen Cooper on piano, cellist Adrian Brendel, star duet harpist Catrin Finch and Aoife Ní Bhriain on fiddle and violin.

Dancer Selene Muñoz is back by popular demand and Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud is returning with his family, Alma, Hector and Franz.

Other musicians taking part are soprano Nine Goldstein, Nurit Stark, violin, Louisa Clein, narrator, George Todica, piano,

The Priory Church of Lady St Mary at Wareham is the venue for the first concert, Across the Sea, at 7.30pm on Thursday 3rd, with works by Samuel Barber, Debussy, Judith Weir, Bloch, Saint-Saens, Ullmann and Mendelssohn.

Still Waters, at St Nicholas Church, Studland, on Friday 4th at 11am, features Mozart, and At The Water’s Edge, at 5pm, for an early evening informal concert at the Mowlem, Swanage, will include folk music and improvisations.

The Priory church at Wareham, at 7.30pm on Friday, hosts The Flowing Brook, an all-Schubert programme which includes Natalie and Imogen Cooper playing the Arpeggione Sonata, and Imogen playing Four Impromptus.

Three events on Saturday 5th begin with Currents at 11am at St Peter’s Church, Church Knowle, with works by George Benjamin, JS Bach and Handel. Natalie Clein leads a cello masterclass at the Mowlem at 2pm, and a concert, The Storm Within, at the Priory church, at 7.30pm, has works by Barber, Smetana (Catrin Finch playing Vltava on the harp), Vasks and Schubert.

Sunday’s programme starts with Everlasting Tides at St James Church, Kingston, at 11.30am, with works by Strauss, Bach and Mozart. The finale is Songs from the Shore, a family concert at the Mowlem, at 2.30pm, featuring the festival musicians including Aoife Ni Bhriain.

Natalie Clein playing, at a previous PICMF concert, at the ancient St Nicholas Church, built in the early 12th century on the foundations of an earlier Anglo-Saxon church at Studland; photograph by Keith Bridle.