If you’re planning to visit your nearest library to catch up on work or escape the noise of the outside world this week, you may be in for a surprise.

The Stroud Green Festival has returned for its third year with a programme filled with early and classical music performances and several workshops to introduce new audiences to the soft, string sounds of the lute.

Clare Norburn, a soprano for the medieval folk group The Telling, organises the festival, which will include a number of popup performances in libraries and restaurants around the surrounding boroughs to bring the music to new spectators.

She says: “This is our third year and the festival has a lot of grass-root connections in the area, as there are lot of performers who are live locally.

“I run a big festival in Brighton every autumn but I live in Stroud Green and suddenly realised I was doing all this work for a festival far away and not on my doorstep.”

The Stroud Green Festival has already seen a range of different acts, including one of the world leading lutenists, Jacob Heringman and world-renowned soprano, Emma Kirkby, who has sung on more than a hundred recordings.

They have performed in libraries in Muswell Hill and Hornsey and lute songs were even brought together with a cabaret at Piccolo Diavolo Restaurant, in Crouch Hill.

“Emma was voted the most loved soprano by Classic FM listeners and she is well loved and well known internationally.” Says Clare.

“I know her very well so asked if she wanted to get involved and she talked about a project she is involved with, which encourages young lutenists.”

Clare has been proud to bring classical artists to unusual places through the unexpected popup shows.

She adds: “The basis of the festival is to bring together young artists and performers who are in the early stages of their career and very original.

“How else are you going to get a new audience and how will you convince people this music is for them unless you take it to them? That is why we are doing the popup events.

“It’s a way of getting people to hear about the festival and listen to the performances without risking buying a ticket and not liking it.”

Clare began organising festivals 15 years ago in her hometown, Brighton, but wanted to bring the medieval sounds to London too.

She says: “I’m a musician but I also design festivals when I’m not performing. I got into it about 15 years ago after starting the Brighton Early Music Festival with a friend and have seen it grow over the years, despite jokingly planning it over a cup of coffee one day.

“I thought it would be a good idea to bring a new festival to my home town that it is slightly different. There’s folk and early music from the renaissance period and it is very much a community festival which is hopefully being brought to a wider audience.”

The performances from the festival will feature a range of instruments which were once popular hundreds of years ago but now are unfamiliar with many people in the 21st century. 

Clare explains: “Some of our musicians have played a medieval harp, early fiddles, a nickel harper and a hurdy-gurdy, which is a folky sort of instrument.

“This sort of music will bring a lot of history to the area. The K'antu Ensemble group is also performing and will bring Elizabethan and Jacobean songs and dances associated with Shakespeare's plays to mark the 400th anniversary of his death.”

The festival will conclude at The Earl Haig, in Crouch End, on Sunday with Clare’s group, The Telling, which will also feature a harp and mezzo.

She says: “My passion is music with symbolism, especially of the lily and of the rose. The Virgin Mary represented the lily and the rose was to do with secular love songs at that time, where they sang about their beautiful rose.  

“Hildegard of Bingen was very powerful in the 12th century and she wrote extraordinary music that was distinct and became a big hit in the classical world.

“This woman was writing centuries ago in the south of France and we do not know very much about her. So I have written a play which imagined her life and tells the story of how she came to write the song.”

She will keep promoting the underrated medieval sound throughout the year.

Clare says: “In July, I will be touring the country with another play about a composer who murdered his first wife gruesomely, it is a very gory story and very different to this lute festival.”

Stroud Green Festival, until Sunday June 26. Details: www.stroudgreenfestival.org.uk