A MOVING performance from the Tendring Brass Band will start this year’s Harwich Festival of the Arts.

The group will play a programme of music, including Henry Wood’s rousing Fantasia on British Sea Songs from the LV18 Lightship from 8.30pm on the opening night on Wednesday.

As dusk falls, there will be spectacular light show aboard the ship, which is sure to wow the assembled audiences and fit perfectly with the festival theme of Leading Lights.

Before the concert, galleries at the town’s art quarter will be open for the first time from 7.30pm.

There will be an opportunity to view the exhibitions entitled Eastern Light at the Old Bank Studios and Young, Emerging and Outsider Artists at the 1912 Centre, as well as paintings by the Dutch artist Piet Mulder, at the High Lighthouse, and works by the gallery artists at Bodgeners Gallery.

All of the galleries will be open throughout the festival. For more details and full listings, visit harwichfestival.co.uk