If you have just endured the virtual hell of being trapped for six hours in the August heat of the Channel Tunnel because of power failure, then the eventual sight of the Abbaye de Valloires must be the next best thing to heaven.

A frantic forty five minute drive down from Calais, a quick freshen up at our hotel then a final sprint across glorious rolling countryside bathed in golden evening light, and we made the Festival’s opening concert with just ten minutes to spare.

You don’t have to be religious (I’m not) for this majestic example of high French Baroque, and the prospect of great music there, to make your frazzled spirits soar.

I had first been attracted to the idea of Valloires, in Argoules, northern France, when I caught sight of the stunning line up in a leaflet distributed by the Wigmore Hall.

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It was world class and I had never even heard of it. If a festival only in it’s second year can attract musicians of the calibre of Angela Hewitt, Nicholas Angelich, Imogen Cooper, Maciej Pikulski, Daniel Muller-Schott, Alina Ibragimova; the Takacs, Jerusalem and Ebene Quartets; and singers Dame Felicity Lott, Ailish Tynan and Mark Padmore, then it must be seriously good.

The Festival takes the work of a core composer, in this case Beethoven, and places it alongside one from the 20th century, here Shostakovitch (this year it will be Schubert with Britten.)

Add plenty more to the mix (Bach, Bartok, Ravel, Schumann etc. etc.) and this is Michelin-starred stuff, a menu degustation of thirteen concerts in six days. That several top flight performers from the inaugural season wished to come back to serve up second helpings in 2007 could only be a good sign.

Something else intrigued me. Here was an international chamber music festival directed in France by an Englishman. Adam Gatehouse is BBC Radio 3’s Editor of Live Music, having worked there first as a producer and later executive producer working with the leading orchestral and opera performers and conductors of the day.

He instigated the celebrated BBC Wigmore Hall Lunchtime Concerts, as well as founding and continuing to run Radio 3’s New Generation Artists Scheme. Connected or what?

He has a home in La France Profonde and had harboured the dream of a chamber music festival for 15 years before stumbling upon the perfect place for it in northern France, rather than the sun soaked south where he expected to find an eventual berth.

Perfect it certainly is. Valloires is the only complete 18th century Cistercian abbey in France. It’s church is ideal for concerts, with a warm acoustic, and plenty to hold your gaze: the gilded papier-mache angels hanging from the ceiling from which the eucharist is suspended in a dove, the massive carved baroque organ chest, the elaborate filigree wrought iron screens. But do take advantage of the cushions available at the door. Churches don’t do comfort.

The abbey itself, which functions as a home for children and the elderly for the rest of the year, conveniently houses the performers on-site. It is an article of faith with Adam Gatehouse that the artistes should be comfortable and well fed and watered, with good rehearsal facilities as well as space for masterclasses (which you can attend).

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