Gemma Rosenfield [Marco Borggreve]

YOU’D expect a sophisticated place like Hampstead to have a serious annual music festival, and indeed it used to have one – but the process has never been easy. For years there was a Hampstead & Highgate Festival, until it became clear that the two communities weren’t quite so joined at the hip as they seemed. Then came the Hampstead Arts Festival, driven by one heroically dedicated man whose heroism gave out in 2019. And since then, there’s been nothing but a void waiting to be filled.

But suddenly, and to considerable surprise, the HAF is back – in a shortened, re-introductory form this coming weekend, Dec 19-21, that’s designed to test the waters. With a view to something bigger next year.

Running the weekend are two well-known musicians native to NW3, cellist Gemma Rosefeld and violinist Benjamin Nabarro. And as they’re both members of the celebrated Ensemble 360 chamber group that plays year-round in Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre, they’ve leaned on their Sheffield colleagues to come down and help out. Which guarantees a certain quality and style.

As the name implies, Ensemble 360 tend to play in the round and are all fabulous musicians. But they’re also warmly effusive human beings who reach out to their audiences in an engaging way – as you’ll find when they hit Hampstead.

There are six events in this Festival taster weekend, including a children’s concert, a jazz night with the Zoe Rahman Trio, and a semi-dramatised account of Janacek’s Intimate Letters quartet, based around the intense but unfulfilled passion for a much younger woman that inspired many of the composer’s late-in-life works.

Venues include Rosslyn Hill Chapel, Keats House, South Hampstead High School and Hampstead Parish Church. And for anyone needing respite from seasonal Messiahs, it’s a perfect, alternative pre-Christmas treat. Details: hampsteadartsfestival.com

• That said, the (in my opinion) ultimate Messiah of the season plays Dec 23 at Smith Square, with Stephen Layton conducting his elite choir Polyphony and the Age of Enlightenment Orchestra. And on the night before, Dec 22, the same forces at the same venue give the ultimate Bach Christmas Oratorio. As good as it gets. sinfoniasmithsq.org.uk

But for an equally exhilarating, streamlined Northern European take on Bach, the award-winning Belgian ensemble Vox Luminis bring his Magnificat to Wigmore Hall, Dec 19: wigmore-hall.org.uk – And as you’d expect, the rest of the week’s highlights are all vocal – with the choir of Queen’s College, Oxford at Smith Square, Dec 19, the venerable Tallis Scholars at Smith Square, Dec 20, and the youthful choristers at Westminster Abbey doing Britten’s much-loved Ceremony of Carols, Dec 19 (booking for all this, including the Abbey concert: sinfoniasmithsq.org.uk)

• Bach and Handel aside, the grandest choral event of the week is arguably at the Barbican, Dec 19, when the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus perform Sir James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio – a revisionist look at an established form which, in the course of nearly two hours, packs in everything from childlike charm to Cecil B de Mille-style epic grandeur. It’s a sweeping, visionary sonic spectacle for those of all faiths and none, conducted here by MacMillan himself. And with Roderick Williams among the soloists, this has all the makings of a standout performance. barbican.org.uk