Royal Philharmonic Orchestra plays Finzi, Chopin and Mendelssohn

Ten days of concerts of beautiful music, programmed around themes of love, romance and Shakespeare are promised as the Summer Music in City Churches Festival returns for its sixth year, hosted this summer in the historic church of St Giles, Cripplegate within London's Square Mile.

Conductor Pierre Vallet opens the Festival with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in two romantic favourites, Mendelssohn’s 'Italian' Symphony, and Chopin’s beautiful second Piano Concerto, with the soloist Elizabeth Sombart. Fittingly, these are prefaced by the heart-lifting overture from incidental music to Shakespeare’s ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’, by Gerald Finzi.