East Neuk Festival 2017: De Profundis

Various venues, June 28-July 2

Trumpet virtuoso and former principal of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland John Wallace is returning to his Fife roots to lead this special project at The Bowhouse (a barn on the Anstruther estate) as part of this year’s East Neuk Festival.

It pays a fond tribute to the past generations of Fife miners, whose working days were spent in terrible and hazardous conditions but whose leisure time was spent playing beautiful music together in brass bands.

De Profundis, drawing on the Gaelic Psalm traditions of the Western Isles, features around 60 brass players, including the highly-regarded Tullis Russell Mills Brass Bands and the Wallace Collection – an established ensemble of some of the world’s leading brass players, led by John himself.

Now aged 68, he was born in Methilhill and grew up in Glenrothes. Generations of his family were employed in the mining industries and he became a member of the Tullis Russell Mills band at the age of seven, when his father brought home a cornet, which he learned to play by ear.

“My grandad, John Williamson Wallace – my namesake – and my two uncles, Charlie and Dave and my dad, Kiff, started in the Coaltown Band,” says John, who famously performed with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.

“My grandad’s twin brother, Sandy, used to cycle to Coaltown from Windygates with his tuba on his back for every rehearsal.”

For this, the 13th East Neuk Festival, artistic director Svend McEwan-Brown has assembled an imaginative programme featuring five days of world class chamber music in a series of venues, including streets, fields, harbours, cafes, gardens and beaches, as well as the Dreel Hall and Kingsbarns Distillery.

Musicians include legendary pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja, the Belcea Quartet and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, as well as younger generation artists such as Julian Bliss, Sean Shibe and the Castalian Quartet performing music ranging from Bach to Julia Wolfe.

Another highlight will be a newly commissioned work from Norwegian composer Henning Sommerro inspired by one of the most important 17th Century Scandinavian poets, Thomas Kingo, whose ancestry lies in Crail, while Schubertiad will involve five concerts of chamber music, solo piano and song composed by Schubert from 1816-1826. www.eastneukfestival.com

Picture: Gareth Jennings. John Wallace, centre, with St Andrews Primary School pupils, is returning to his roots for the East Neuk Festival.