International star Hayley Westenra will be performing at this year's King's Lynn Festival it was announced today.

International star Hayley Westenra will be performing at this year's King's Lynn Festival, it was announced yesterday.

The New Zealand soprano joins the Czech National Symphony Orchestra with conductor Libor Pesek and Singapore-born pianist Melvyn Tan to head the line-up of world-famous names at this summer's festival.

Artistic director Ambrose Miller said: 'On July 17-30 we will be staging a truly international festival with top names from the worlds of classical and popular music and the arts, so maintaining our tradition of excellence.'

Hayley Westenra, who sings a wide variety of songs from both the classical and popular repertoire, will be accompanied by a small group of musicians at the Corn Exchange on July 24.

Another big attraction will be the return of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra and charismatic conductor Libor Pesek for the final concert on July 30.

Melvyn Tan will give a recital on July 28, the Vienna Mozart Trio will appear on July 21 and 18th-century Italian music specialists La Serenissima and Swedish-born harpsichord virtuoso Carole Cerasi will take part in Early Music Day on July 23.

Violin virtuoso Tasmin Little will perform in St Nicholas' Chapel with its nationally acclaimed acoustic quality on July 19 and jazz singer Clare Teal will be joined by a trio at St George's Guildhall on July 29.

King's Lynn Festival Chorus will feature in the festival's opening concert on July 17. The hugely popular Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain will return on July 26 with a programme entitled Ukulelescope in which they will perform special arrangements and compositions to accompany clips from silent films.

There will be a light-hearted evening on July 27, entitled The Virginia Monologues: Why Growing Old is Great – the hit Edinburgh Fringe show featuring columnist and agony aunt Virginia Ironside.

Classical historian Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill will give an illustrated talk on the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum on July 20 and author Max Jones will commemorate the 100th anniversary of Captain Scott's fateful Terra Nova expedition with a talk entitled Scott of the Antarctic: From Hero to Villain? on July 18.

The literary dinner will be in Lynn Town Hall on Friday, July 22, and on July 25-29 morning coffee concerts will be held in the Town Hall.