The East Neuk Festival is an annual music festival that takes place over five days around 1 July in the area known as the East Neuk of Fife.
The East Neuk Festival is an annual music festival that takes place over five days around 1 July in the area known as the East Neuk of Fife.
Established in 2004 it was the brainchild of Donald and Louise MacDonald and founding artistic director Svend McEwan-Brown.
The festival concerts take place in a range of venues including churches in villages such as St Monans, Crail, Kilconquhar, Kilrenny and Cellardyke as well as unusual spaces such as Scotland's Secret Bunker an aircraft shelter at RAF Leuchars, gardens, caves, dells, local attractions and notably, The Bowhouse, a centre for food production and promotion on the Balcaskie Estate which is transformed into a performance venue especially for the event.
Musicians and ensembles join together in residencies for practically the duration of the festival playing core chamber music repertoire alongside new commissions, contemporary works, jazz and world music. Storytelling, poetry, literature, exhibitions, films and other art and installation projects also feature.
Regular guest artists include the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, conductor/pianist Christian Zacharias, the Belcea Quartet, the Pavel Haas Quartet, the Castalian Quartet, Leipzig String Quartet, The Tallis Scholars, pianists Elisabeth Leonskaja and Llŷr Williams.
The 2021 festival programme includes 7 live concerts, pop up events throughout the area, installations and broadcasts online and on BBC Radio 3.
The 2022 Festival will take place 29 June - 3 July.
The Festival offers young artists special opportunities to develop their musicianship and projects in chamber music through its ENF Retreat programme. [1] Retreat residencies and seminars culminate in performances at the festival but are primarily focused on the personal and musical development of the participant. The Retreat takes place in the village of Elie in Fife. In 2021 guitarist Sean Shibe explores guitar quartet repertoire, while violinist Benjamin Baker works towards the realisation of multimedia recital project entitled Sei Solo. Further residencies will be announced in July 2021
ENF is committed to commissioning new works by major figures that are intended for performance by professional and community musicians side by side. The first work in this series was Across the Distance for 32 horns by John Luther Adams in 2015. [2] In 2016 this was followed by David Lang's Memorial Ground for amateur and professional singers, a choral commemoration of the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. [3] This was commissioned jointly by the East Neuk Festival and 14-18 NOW, with the support of Creative Scotland. Premiered on 2 July 2016, it was then made available for free to choirs to create their own performances, and more than 40 performances have taken place by April 2017. In 2017 ENF commissioned a devised performance with the musicians of the Tullis Russell Mills Band in Fife, led by trumpeter John Wallace and his The Wallace Collection musicians. Inspired by the stories of Fife's miners, and the music they made in their brass bands, it was called De Profundis and was premiered in Fife on 1 July 2017. [4] 2018's commission saw Scanner work with students from Waid Academy, Anstruther to create a sound memorial to men lost at sea in the fishing industry. [5]
East Neuk Festival has twice been awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Audience Development - in 2007 and in 2017. [6] In 2019 it won a Scottish Awards for New Music for its Big Project, Lost at Sea. [7]
Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, born Elizabeth Penn Sprague, was an American pianist and patron of music, especially of chamber music.
John Luther Adams is an American composer whose music is inspired by nature, especially the landscapes of Alaska, where he lived from 1978 to 2014. His orchestral work Become Ocean was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: The Tempest (2004), Violin Concerto (2005), Tevot (2007), In Seven Days (2008), and Polaris (2010).
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St Monans, sometimes spelt St Monance, is a village and parish in the East Neuk of Fife and is named after the legendary Saint Monan.
Augusta Read Thomas is an American composer and University Professor of Composition in the Department of Music at the University of Chicago, where she is also director of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition.
Saint Monan was a Christian missionary in Fife, probably a Gael. Little is known of him. Monan is believed to have lived at a monastery at Pittenweem before leaving to take up residence in a small cave at Inverey.
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Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi is a world renowned Japanese cellist. In an international career which began in 1954, Tsutsumi has performed and recorded all of the principal standard works in the cello repertoire, both solo and concerto. He has appeared as soloist with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington D.C..
Stanislav Ioudenitch is an Uzbekistani-born American pianist, known for winning the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Gold Medal at the Eleventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2001, jointly with Olga Kern, as well as the Steven De Groote Memorial Award for Best Performance of Chamber Music. He has also won top prizes at the Busoni, Kapell, and Maria Callas Competitions, as well as at the 1998 Palm Beach Invitational and the 2000 New Orleans International. His win at the Van Cliburn Competition led to a recital debut at the Aspen Music Festival and a European tour, highlighted by appearances at summer festivals in France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom.
David Horne is a Scottish composer, pianist, and teacher.
Bryce David Dessner is an American composer and guitarist based in Paris, and a member of the rock band the National. Dessner's twin brother, Aaron is also a member of the group. Together, they write the music in collaboration with lead singer and lyricist Matt Berninger.
The Crossing is an American professional chamber choir, conducted by Donald Nally and based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It focuses on new music, commission and premiere works, and collaborates with various venues and instrumental ensembles.
Chamber Music Detroit, formerly the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, was founded in 1944 and is the tenth oldest chamber music series in the United States as recognized by Chamber Music America. It is widely respected as metropolitan Detroit's anchor organization for chamber music.
Colin David Currie is a multi award-winning Scottish virtuoso percussionist. He is the founder and leader of the Colin Currie Group, an ensemble specializing in performing and recording the music of Steve Reich.
Kevin Kwan Loucks is a Korean–American classical pianist, arts entrepreneur, and nonprofit executive. In September 2021, he was appointed chief executive officer of Chamber Music America in New York City. He previously served as Director of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, a presenting organization in residence at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, CA, and also served as Director of Innovation and Program Development at Music Academy of the West in Montecito, California. He co-founded Chamber Music | OC, an arts organization headquartered in Lake Forest, California, and is a founding member and current pianist of the award-winning piano trio, Trio Céleste.
This is a summary of the year 2017 in British music.