The Schubert Ensemble will be performing at The Octagon at Queen Mary University of London as part of the Spitalfields Music Summer Festival
© James Berry

Kicking off the new season is the Spitalfields Music Summer Festival. Over three weeks, a range of music will be performed in unique venues across E1. Now in its 40th year, the Summer Festival will entertain audiences with opera, folk, jazz, early and contemporary music. Interesting and unexpected venues will host concerts and gigs, such as museums, cafés and churches to markets, gardens and, even, cemeteries.

Here’s some highlights of this year’s festival:

• Shabaka Hutchings & Anthony Joseph @ Shoreditch Church (3 June)

Jazz saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings and spoken word artist Anthony Joseph will be combining their talents to tell the folk stories of the Caribbean. £5-£15.

• Sister @ Rich Mix (3 June)

A cross-arts show, featuring an outpouring of memories – some tender, some comic, and others painfully raw. Created through interviews with sisters around the world. £12.

• Playspace Singing Workshop @ Shoreditch Church Gardens (4 June)

If you fancy having a go at singing, sign up to a workshop based on the idea of play: you’ll get a chance to make music from a cartoon score, create a human loop station and make a body percussion piece. Free.

• Anno: Scottish Ensemble & Anna Meredith @ Oval Space (6-7 June)

Step into a dark Oval Space and immerse yourself in the passing of a year. Listen to an exciting première by Anna Meredith, based on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, while watching visual projections of the seasons passing by. The music intertwines Vivaldi’s original with Anna Meredith’s own writing, using cadenzas and electronics to transform the distinct four concerti into one continuous musical experience. £15.

• Schubert Ensemble @ The Octagon (13 June)

Romantic chamber music presented beneath an elegant high-domed ceiling. The Schubert Ensemble premieres a piano quintet by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, winner of the BBC Young Composer competition at the age of just 15, along a quintet by Louise Farrenc, the only woman to hold a permanent post at the Paris Conservatoire in the 19th century. £15.

• Multi-Story Orchestra @ Museum Of Childhood (15 June)

Explore the museum after dark in this atmospheric late-night performance by the Multi-Story Orchestra. £15.

• Depart @ Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park (16-26 June)

Haunting sights and sounds will seduce you down a path punctuated by unexpected encounters as you weave through the space between life and death in this East End cemetery. Led by Yaron Lifschitz and his internationally acclaimed company, Circa and with a creative team including the electronic musician Lapalux, this ethereal collaboration brings circus artists, choral singers, designers and musicians together for a summer night full of surprises. £15/£20.

• The Spitalfields Music Summer Festival 2016 takes place from 2-26 June. For more information and tickets, visit the Spitalfields Music website.

For a guide to what else is on in London in June, click here.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin