WORLD-CLASS music is coming to the Loddon with the inaugural Keys of Gold festival showcasing artists across the region in July.
The month-long festival aims to showcase the heritage of buildings, public spaces and elegant streetscapes from the region’s gold rush era.
Loddon Shire is sponsoring the festival’s recital at Inglewood’s St Augustine’s Anglican Church.
Mayor Dan Straub said: “Arts and culture is an identified experience pillar in the Shire’s Visitor Economy Strategy and this festival will no doubt benefit both the Inglewood community and the Loddon Shire economy.”
Bendigo Fine Music artistic director Thomas Heywood said completion of the St Augustine’s organ would be celebrated as part of Keys of Gold.
The festival will feature 16 concerts, 45 artists and 11 grand historic keyboard instruments, from cathedral pipe organs to concert pianos being played in  Bendigo, Castlemaine, Maldon and Inglewood.
The Inglewood, concert, Olde World Favourites, will feature Heywood and soprano Merlyn Quaife performing a selection of classical pieces, including works by Bach, César Franck, and Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély.
Organisers say the four-week festival of 16 concerts had been inspired by goldfields architect William Vahland who had the “vision of making Bendigo the Vienna of the South”.