JANUARY 1-3, BATH: BY the time New Year comes along it will be 200 years since Johann Strauss the father was born, so starting a long tradition of glorious music from the Strauss family.

The London Gala Orchestra, who for the last ten years have been presenting a series of New Year concerts, will dedicate the coming series to Johann Strauss I by including in their programme five of his most famous works.

Their Viennese Spectacular will be at the Forum, in Bath, at 3pm on New Year's Day and at Salisbury City Hall in the evening of January 3, under the baton of Steve Bell who has conducted many of the LGO's concerts.

He is a regular conductor of BBCs Friday Night is Music Night concerts and is a regular guest conductor with the Halle and Ulster Orchestras. He studied under the late Norman Del Mar at the Royal College of Music.

Bell has conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra in a series of children's concerts organisers are hoping for plenty of youthful faces in Bath's audience.

Lynton Atkinson, tenor soloist, studied music at Cambridge University. He won the Richard Tauber Competition, made his debut at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in 1990 and became a contract artist singing principal roles in La Traviata, Pearl Fishers, Magic Flute, Don Giovanni and the Merry Widow.

Soprano Jane Kemp studied at Chetham's, Cambridge University, Royal College of Music and the Royal Scottish Academy. She has sung for London Opera Players, Central Festival Opera, Garden Opera and Music Theatre Kernow. With her dazzling wardrobe and ebullient personality, she was a great success last year.

Reg Burnard