Oxford's first May Music Festival will showcase some of the country's finest chamber musicians, writes NICOLA LISLE

Oxford and May Morning are traditional partners; they go together, as Sammy Cahn famously wrote, like a horse and carriage. This year, for the first time, the pair will be serenaded in spectacular fashion with the launch of a new six-day music festival that brings together an exciting mix of experienced musicians and young, emerging talent.

The festival is the brainchild of physicist Prof Brian Foster, head of the Department of Particle Physics at Balliol, and violinist Jack Liebeck, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music and a finalist, at the age of 14, in the 1994 Young Musician of the Year competition.

The idea emerged from their successful lecture series on Einstein and the violin, which they established in 2005 and have since taken all over the UK and beyond.

"We wanted to come up with a project to be involved with together and the idea of putting on a series of concerts was very attractive," Jack said. "Brian's amazing at organizing events and enjoys doing it. And because I'm a musician I'm able to get some really great players together - friends and colleagues."

With Oxford's vibrant cultural scene, it is perhaps surprising that a May music festival doesn't already exist.

"The thing that perturbed us for some time was why nobody else seemed to be doing it," admitted Brian. "I wondered whether it was because May morning can be quite rowdy and noisy, but by mid-morning it's usually calmed down. To have something that goes between that and the Bank Holiday just seemed like such a great idea, I couldn't understand why nobody else had done it."

The programme has been largely put together by Jack, who had very definite ideas about what he wanted.

"There are different kinds of festivals that get put on. Some festivals are where you ship in a load of musicians from all over the place to play chamber music and rehearse together, sometimes to very mixed results - what I call car-crash chamber music, where you just bunch a load of people together and see what happens.

"What I preferred to do was get some people to come and do their own recitals or quartets that they would do elsewhere in the country, so it's just a time to come here and meet great musicians. I think we're going to have some really fantastic concerts."

The festival opens with a recital at the Holywell by pianist Piers Lane, in a programme focusing on the Romantic repertoire, so Bach, Chopin, Brahms and Schumann will feature prominently.

"Piers is one of the most eminent pianists in the world today, and audiences absolutely love him," said Jack. "He's fantastic at talking to the audience and he plays beautifully, and he's a wonderful guy."

Next up is Jack himself, with regular accompanist Ashley Wass, in a mixture of familiar and not-so-familiar music - Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, Brahms's D Minor Sonata and a little-known piece by English composer Frank Bridge.

Jack is involved again the next evening with the Fibonacci Sequence, a six-piece ensemble that Jack describes as "an incredibly flexible chamber group - you get to listen to pieces that wouldn't necessarily be played in normal chamber music concerts because they'll bring in a flugel, or a trumpet or a harp". Their programme includes music by Haydn, Mozart, Saint-Saëns, Clarke, Ravel and Vine.

The next concert features the fast-emerging Elias String Quartet, which has recently taken over from the Lindsay Quartet as resident ensemble at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. They will be followed by cellist Adrian Brendel, son of legendary pianist Alfred Brendel, and Charles Owen, a pianist renowned for his duo playing but now establishing a flourishing solo career.

The final concert, on the May Bank Holiday, sees Jack and Ashley Wass joining forces with cellist Richard Harwood and viola player Simon Rowland-Jones, formerly of the Chilingirian String Quartet, in a diverse programme that includes music by Mozart, Brahms, Martinu and Bridge, and promises to bring the festival to a spirited close.

Interspersed between these concerts will be a number of lectures, the first of which is Brian and Jack's Einstein's Universe, which explores the links between the violin, Einstein's favourite instrument, and the theories he helped develop. Other lectures include local author James Attlee talking about his book Isolarion, which was set around the Cowley Road, and world-renowned luthier Florian Leonhard discussing the scientific reasons for the sound made by stringed instruments.

With such a diverse display of virtuosity, it's hard to imagine Oxford's latest festival being anything but a resounding success.

"It's going to have a friendly feel,' promised Jack. "People need to see that we can put together something that is hopefully quite impressive, and it'll gain in reputation. So hopefully it's going to go on for a few years."

The Oxford May Music Festival runs from April 30 to May 5. For tickets, call 01865 305305 or visit www.oxfordplayhouse.com. For more information about the festival, visit www.oxfordmaymusic.co.uk