The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Festival will lay on feast of live music
Anstruther will be transformed into a host for music, jazz and trad tunes when the East Neuk Festival arrives in June.
The event will run from June 26 to 30 and festival favourite Julian Bliss will return with his septet celebrating Gershwin and French composer Renaud Garcia Fons.
They will be joined by harpist and singer Esther Swift and Irish fiddle player Aoife ni Bhrian, who will perform with harpist Catrin Finch.
The music weekend will kick off with the premiere of Zulu – a 2024 commission performed in the Zulu Gallery at the Scottish Fisheries Museum.
Esther Swift is working with multi-instrumentalist Callum Macleod and 15 young local musicians to create this new piece which will tell the story of the Zulu fishing fleets.
The performance aims to evoke stories of the boats and the communities that depended on them for fishing.
Aoife ni Bhrian and Catrin Finch will also play together and fans of bassist Renaud Garcia Fons will be able to hear him unplugged on the Friday.
He will perform his latest work Luna de Seda (Silk Moon) on Saturday afternoon.
Performing with a quartet of musicians from around the Mediterranean, audiences can expect to hear bass, flamenco guitar, qanun and kemenche.
Festival director Svend McEwan Brown said: “It has always been my ambition to complement the classical music programme in Crail and Kilrenny with a vibrant selection of music in the multitude of intimate halls and quirky venues offered in Anstruther.
“The town lends itself to the energy of world, trad and jazz, and the musicians always have an incredible time playing to a real mix of new and returning audiences at the festival.”
Outwith Anstruther, music fans can attend a classical programme of music performed by three string quartets.
Broadcaster, musician and composer Neil Brand is to accompany an hour of slapstick golf-themed silent films on piano.
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra led by Maxim Emelyanychev will bring the festival to a close with works by Beethoven, Mozart and an on-the-spot created Fantasia.
“Musicians always have an incredible time playing to a real mix of new and returning audiences