10 Fast Facts

1. ENF was the idea of Donald and Louise MacDonald who co-founded it with Svend McEwan-Brown in 2004. It exists because we believe in the joy and power of live music and its potential to transform lives and life.

2. The 20th ENF takes place 25 – 29 June 2025 in Crail, Anstruther, Kilrenny, St Monans and Elie. The programme will be launched in November 2024.

3. ENF is a registered charity, and raises funds from many sources to make the magic happen each year. These include grants from charitable trusts and foundations and – our biggest single source of income – private donations by our Patrons, who contribute around 50% of our annual budget. READ MORE HERE.

4. In any given year, our smallest project might be a concert in a tiny space for 30 people; our biggest project to date was 2016’s Memorial Ground, a UK-wide commission which involved thousands of people throughout the UK and nearby Europe.

5. We reach for the stars, and regular visitors include pianists of the calibre of Christian Zacharias and Elisabeth Leonskaja, The Scottish Chamber Orchestra, The Tallis Scholars, the Belcea, Elias, Pavel Haas, Calidore and Castalian String Quartets, Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier, Renaud Garcia-Fons and Sean Shibe.

6. Community and place matter to ENF. We connect with our community in many different ways, but most visibly through our annual BIG PROJECT. This is a commission to create a new work for community and professional musicians, inspired by the landscape, heritage or history of the area. We will announce 2025’s project soon.

7. We nurture young artists and since 2015, the ENF Retreat has offered exceptional young musicians a matchless opportunity to spend time with outstanding world-class players, to learn both specific repertoire and also more general aspects of musical wisdom that will influence their work for years to come. Or to work on a project of special importance to them. Click on this link to read more about The Retreat.

8. Our audience, who enjoy our events and exhibitions annually, has grown from around 700 in 2005 to an estimated 25,000.

9.We have twice been awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Audience Development (the only Scottish music organisation to have done so) and won the Scottish New Music Award in 2019 for our Lost at Sea project.

10. Our venues are quirky, atmospheric and special: from churches, halls, an ex-nuclear bunker, caves, an RAF base, a Scout hall, stately homes and gardens, and – not least – the streets of the East Neuk…