This year, the Cumnock Tryst is presenting five days of events to celebrate its 10th birthday.
Founded by composer Sir James MacMillan, the festival runs from 2 to 6 October 2024. MacMillan, who grew up in the East Ayrshire town, remains the festival’s artistic director and takes his inspiration from models such as Peter Maxwell Davies’ St Magnus Festival in Orkney and Benjamin Britten’s Aldeburgh initiative. The Cumnock Tryst has established itself as a festival for and of its local community.
Beyond the five day festival in October, The Cumnock Tryst continues its year-round work in the local community, and this year also sees the inaugural International Summer School for Composers – an opportunity for young composers from across the globe to come to East Ayrshire and work alongside Sir James MacMillan and Anna Thorvaldsdottir.
The festival this year features the debut of the newly formed Cumnock Tryst Ensemble. This new chamber group is directed by cellist Christian Elliott and consists Scottish musicians who have had an association with The Tryst over the last 10 years. The ensemble will have a commitment to the local community and a special focus on composers of our own era, with performances, in Cumnock and elsewhere, and will participate in many of the festival’s community and education projects spearheaded. The inaugural recital includes music by Olivier Messiaen, Elliot Carter, Rebecca Clarke, James MacMillan and Frank Bridge.
Music of Land Reclamation, on the second day of the festival, will be the culmination of a composition project for Higher and Advanced Higher Music students at Robert Burns Academy. In a project led by Sir James MacMillan and Ayrshire composer Gillian Walker, the composers have responded to photographs of the local area from photographer Simon Butterworth’s series Abstract Excavationism: The Art of Industrial Land Reclamation.
Over the years the festival has developed a number of ground-breaking music projects for children and adults with additional support needs, and this year James MacMillan has been working in Hillside School and the nearby Riverside Centre alongside Drake Music Scotland and the Hebrides Ensemble. With the belief that disability should never be a barrier to a deeply engaging involvement with music, the performance of The Unbroken Thread, follows a series of creative workshops where all involved devised their own music and modes of expression.
The Cumnock Tryst Tenth Birthday Gala Concert, All the Hills and Vales will feature local ensembles with international visitors for a birthday celebration of brass, strings and voices. The main work is All the Hills and Vales Along, an oratorio which James MacMillan composed for the 2018 festival to mark the centenary of the WW1 Armistice. Scottish emerging composers Gillian Walker and Erin Thomson will hear the world premieres of their recent Tryst commissions.
Other performers at this year’s festival include pianist Steven Osborne, the Maxwell Quartet, the Gesualdo Six, Joshua Ellicott, guitarist, flautist and singer Seán Gray, the Euan Stevenson Trio, Ayshire fiddler Alastair Savage and the Tommy Smith Youth Jazz Orchestra.
Full details from the festival’s website.
