Following a record-breaking summer, Ryedale Festival has announced two special Christmas concerts by candlelight, bringing Royal Northern Sinfonia and acclaimed vocal ensemble APOLLO5 to North Yorkshire this December. The announcement follows the Festival’s most successful year to date, with nearly 11,000 tickets sold, almost 10% more than the previous year.

At just 17, Scottish singer-songwriter Zack Gibson is already establishing himself as one of the most compelling young artists in Scotland’s new acoustic pop scene.

Tom Ogden’s songwriting has become noticeably more personal, drawing heavily on marriage, relationships and the small details that make up a shared life. Yet there is nothing overly grand about the subject matter. Instead, Blossoms find their material in arguments, car journeys, television nights and domestic routines, turning the stuff of everyday existence into bright, melodic indie-pop.

There has never been any sense of Vonda Shepard rushing to put out a record simply for the sake of having something new to say. Instead, she has always seemed more interested in maintaining the remarkable bond she has built with her live audience, whilst allowing herself the time and space to follow her own creative process. New music arrives when it is ready — and, on Nine Songs, that patience has once again paid off.

Killing Heidi was only the beginning. Hooper subsequently explored a folkier side with The Verses alongside Jesse, before embarking on a solo career that has seen her continually experiment with an array of genres and sonic landscapes. Overnight Success, her third solo album, finds her drawing all of those experiences together and planting herself firmly in the Americana and country sphere.

The disc is the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge's thirtieth for Hyperion, and the first since Steven Grahl took up the baton as director of music. Any anxiety that the choir's famously burnished sound might falter in the changeover can be laid to rest within a few bars. If anything, it has acquired a fresh bloom. Tone, diction, soloists, accompaniment and Hyperion's characteristically sumptuous engineering are first-class from every angle, and the whole has the feeling of a choir singing music it loves.

One of Britain’s most-beloved soul pop voices, the multi-award winning artist Will Young, has announced The Evergreen 25th Anniversary Tour – a celebratory 16-date tour across the UK with his full band, performing all the hits across his two-decade-plus journey in music. The tour kicks off in February 2027, coinciding with 25 years since Will’s landmark Pop Idol win.

For any lover of English song this is a disc to cherish. At its heart lie the songs of Elizabeth Maconchy and Grace Williams, heard alongside the man who taught them both, Ralph Vaughan Williams. Mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately and pianist William Vann have performed together for several years, and they kept returning to Vaughan Williams's orbit. Above all, they were drawn to the women who wrote the music and verse he knew so well. What emerges is a picture of a teacher, his pupils and his friends, each with a voice entirely their own.

Twenty-five years on from Stuart Adamson’s death, Big Country returns in a new guise: Big Country Redux. The name is an appropriately reflective one for Eastworld, a ten-track collection that reaches back into the band’s archives to resurrect songs Adamson wrote or co-wrote with Bruce Watson and former bassist Tony Butler. Some will be familiar to long-standing fans through live performances, demos and lesser-known releases; others have spent decades waiting for the treatment they receive here.

There is something nocturnal about the album. Even when the music opens into the wide horizons of Americana, there are clouds gathering at the edges. Country, folk and rock mingle with more elusive textures, but nothing feels neatly contained. The songs drift, shimmer and bruise, carrying the weight of things remembered and things that perhaps cannot be forgotten. Rothman draws from the language of Americana without becoming bound by it, turning its familiar roads and landscapes into something stranger and more inward.

Few composers carry as many contradictions as Dmitri Shostakovich. He could write music of crushing weight and bleak introspection, then turn out a ballet number or a popular song arrangement with a wink and a flourish. Any collection that aims to present him whole has to do justice to both sides. Chandos's eight-CD reissue of Neeme Järvi's recordings with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra does exactly that, and it makes an excellent introduction to the composer for newcomers as well as a rewarding return for those who already know him.

The Nashville singer-songwriter’s third studio album is a significant step forward from his first two records. Across 17 tracks, McNown expands the boundaries of his sound, moving beyond the more straightforward country foundations of his earlier work and into something considerably more fluid: part indie, part folk, part country, with flashes of pop that give the album a broader, more contemporary reach.

Liverpool four-piece east exchange. have spent the past year turning cramped rehearsal rooms, freezing warehouses and relentless touring into the foundations of something much bigger. Childhood friends united by a shared love of ’90s grunge and melodic alternative rock, the band have quickly built a reputation for raw, emotionally charged songs and an equally energetic live presence.

A musical which opened at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre has been shortlisted for one of the UK theatre industry’s major awards - and having seen it on its opening run, I’m hardly surprised.

Mariah Carey, the elusive chanteuse and best-selling female artist of all time, will bring the magic of Christmas to the UK this winter, announcing three spectacular arena shows in Birmingham, London and Manchester.