REJOICE is the uplifting theme for this year's Salisbury International Arts Festival.

"It's all about celebrations," said festival director, Jo Metcalf, on Monday night.

"We are showcasing African culture through a mix of music, performance, visual art and film, with an artistic focus on song and an environmental focus on vegetation, and this will culminate in the peace weekend and arrival of Nobel Peace Laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to the city."

Zulu dancers, The Lions of Zululand, will perform traditional dances and songs at Stonehenge, Cape Dance Company will perform their exciting show, Cicadas, and the closing concert in Salisbury's Cathedral Close will feature the wonderful voice of Natacha Atlas in a programme entitled Africa: Rejoice.

Singing ambassador Howard Goodall returns to Salisbury as a national ambassador for singing to talk about the power of the human voice. This power can be experienced in concerts by Salisbury chamber choir, The Farrant Singers, The King's Singers and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, who will be performing Poulenc's majestic choral work, the Gloria, as part of their programme with Bishop Wordsworth's School Choir also taking part.

And the Brodsky Quartet make a welcome return to the festival since their last visit in 2004, in a collaboration with African kora player, Tunde Jegede, as well as music by Shostakovich and Janacek.

Writer Vikram Seth has turned his attentions to India for inspiration for the third piece in the four-year festival commission, Confluences. Seth has written six new poems as well as translating more than 20 Indian texts for a piece, The Traveller, to be performed in Salisbury Cathedral by the Britten Sinfonia and Salisbury Festival Chorus under conductor, Howard Moody.

Opening the two-week festival is the hugely-popular and free Salisbury Live event, where pubs and clubs in the city will host an eclectic range of musical sounds from blues to bluegrass and jazz to cover bands, with some heavy metal thrown in for good measure.

A literature programme has again been compiled, supported by a consortium of independent Salisbury bookshops (Cross Keys Bookshop, Sarum College Bookshop and Freddie & Sunshine). Authors and speakers booked include the poet and critic Tom Paulin and General Sir Mike Jackson who will talk about his recently-published autobiography.

Laura Phillips, the new chairman of the festival board, paid tribute to her predecessor, Carolyn Newbigging, for her outstanding stewardship of the festival over the years and commended this year's festival programming, saying: "We are still local and regional but we are also international.

"We hope it will help the city grow in strength."

Full details of all festival events are listed in the colour brochure available from all participating venues, tourist information centre, library and many shops and businesses in the city.