This year, Anstruther in Fife will be at the heart of East Neuk Festival’s 20th anniversary celebrations (25-29 June) with a vibrant weekend programme of jazz, traditional, and guitar music taking place in four of the town’s venues.
Highlights include Northumberland’s legendary folk artist Kathryn Tickell with her band The Darkening playing tunes from her new album Return to Kielderside released in November last year; and rising star on the London jazz scene Tom Smith and his septet who will play a bluesy set of tunes from his debut album A Year in the Life released earlier this year.
Festival favourites returning include Scottish composer, musician and songwriter Euan Stevenson playing top class swinging tunes from icons Duke Ellington and Bill Evans with fellow jazzers Andrew Sharkey (double bass) and Tom Gordon (drums). Plus, Sean Shibe, who made his debut at East Neuk Festival in 2012, returns to perform three solo concerts spanning five centuries in the evolution of the guitar in a single day.
Sean Shibe starts with a morning concert of lute music from Scottish and French manuscripts from over five centuries ago; at lunchtime he plays music by Bach and Thomas Ades on acoustic guitar; then he closes his day on electric guitar, including his own joyous rendition of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint. His three performances will be followed by a rare solo performance by celebrated Oud player Nizar Rohana from Syria, whose performances of this ancient instrument, that is the ancestor of all European guitar-like instruments, are truly mesmerising.
The festival also sees the return of harpist and composer Esther Swift, with an epic reinterpretation of her 2024 Big Project commission Zulu. This promenade performance on Saturday afternoon tells the stories of the Zulu fishing boats that once thronged the East Neuk coastline through music devised with musicians from St Andrews Music Project, Fife Youth Jazz Orchestra and East Fife Community Ensemble against a back drop of newly commissioned art work by Esme McIntyre.
Festival Director Svend McEwan Brown said:
I am thrilled to be able to bring so much world class talent to Anstruther for our 20th festival. If there’s a theme running through it, it has to be ‘amazing musicians at the top of their game.’ You would normally hear these people in major world venues, but they’re drawn to the East Neuk by the amazing atmosphere and enthusiastic audiences. With top class, jazz, folk, community arts, guitar and world music there is something special for everyone, and we look forward to welcoming everyone to the festival in June.
Elsewhere in Fife, music fans can also enjoy an outstanding classical programme of music including all five of Beethoven’s late quartets performed by four of the world’s finest: Elias Quartet, The Pavel Haas Quartet, Castalian Quartet and the Belcea Quartet. Audiences can also enjoy the return of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Principal Guest Conductor Andrew Manze who will open this year’s festival; and Schubert’s three song cycles performed by celebrated tenor Mark Padmore and baritone James Newby, and pianist Joseph Middleton.
Plus, to close the 20th festival, there will be the world premiere of Field of Stars by Sally Beamish performed by all four quartets and inspired partly by pilgrimage, and the Santiago de Compostela or ‘Field of Stars’ – the navigational tool used by pilgrims over the ages.
The East Neuk Festival runs from Wednesday, 25th to Sunday, 29th June and celebrates the joy and power of live music and its potential to transform lives and life. In the past 20 years the festival has presented over 420 events and welcomed well over 3,000 performers and 200,000 people to some of the most unique and intimate venues in the East Neuk of Fife.