WE’RE CELEBRATING 20 GREAT YEARS IN 2024 & 2025

ENF embarks on 2 years of celebrations in 2024: the 20th anniversary of its founding next June followed by its 20th festival in 2025. We’re celebrating with old friends and new faces in favourite venues and new found spaces in the East Neuk of Fife.

20 Years is quite the landmark for any festival: when we started we were warned that few even make it past their first year, so we’re proud to be still here, still fresh and true to what we set out to do.

The full 2024 programme will be launched on 25 January 2024, with booking opening right after that.

Download our preview brochure

Sample the spirit of the festival in this snapshot of ENF2023

Support ENF

Every year hundreds of people donate to ENF : without them we would not be able to do what we do. If you would like to join them, you will find some info HERE

WE are grateful to Creative Scotland for supporting our double anniversary with extended funding over the two years.

ENF 2023 in Pictures

Thanks to photographer Neil Hanna (www.neilhannaphotography.co.uk) who went behind the scenes this year to capture the artists and team preparing for performances EWNF2023

A message from ENF Director, Svend McEwan-Brown

[Colin Hattersley Photography]

Over the past year, as we worked towards ENF2022, the whole team was keenly aware that it would take no more than a fresh wave of COVID to overturn all our plans. I did not anticipate that I myself would miss two thirds of it due to testing positive, but before that happened I was delighted to see both many familiar faces and new faces come together to enjoy one of our most ambitious programmes to date. I heartily thank everyone – performers, audience, team, funders – who helped make it such a success. 

Elisabeth Leonskaja in rehearsal [photo by Neil Hanna]

I have been reliving highlights of ENF2022 through the reviews which have been warm and enthusiastic:

“Unquestionably, though, the greatest day in this or (in my experience) any other festival came in three extraordinary concerts from 11.30 in the morning to about 9.30 at night.“ [The Arts Desk about Saturday]

“this was a year of great riches…” [Vox Carnyx]

“Every year Svend McEwan-Brown, the festival’s director, entices some of the finest musicians to this sleepy corner of Scotland, and they keep coming back.” [The Times]

We’ve put links to all the review at eastneukfestival.com/about-enf/press-media/ 

Rihab Azaar in concert [photo by Neil Hanna]

IN 2022, more people than ever made personal donations to ENF, and I give my profound thanks to every one of them. ENF simply could not happen without you, and I hope you will support us as we turn to our plans for 2023. Tempting fate it may be, but I suspect ENF2023 will be a proper feast of treats. At the heart of our programme, we welcome back the Belcea Quartet who return with a host of international friends, all major artists in their own right, to play solo, duo, quartet and sextet. As ever, there will also be new faces, music of different traditions, quirky happenings and unexpected surprises (in a very good way).

If you would like to support us, the simplest way is to use our online DONATION FORM – and I thank you in advance.

Perhaps the most important reflection I took from this year’s event is how happy festivals make us – from a seven year-old horn player to the most senior among us, I saw pleasure and smiles wherever I looked. That’s quite a thing, especially after recent years.

Thunderplump rehearsals [Neil Hanna Photography]

ENF 2022 in PICTURES

Photographer Neil Hanna had a roving brief at ENF 2022 to capture the festival as it happened…

NB Hi Res images available for press use; please contact Debra Boraston with enquiries

Young brass players in ENF’s BIG PROJECT 2022 [Photo by Neil Hanna]

Trumpeter John Wallace and one of our young performers keep an eye on things in ENF’s BIG PROJECT 2022 [photo by Neil Hanna]

Light the Lights rehearsal with Violinist Benjamin Baker and Dancer James Pett.[Neil Hanna Photography]

Light the Lights rehearsal with Benjamin Baker, violin, and Aaron Sparks, juggler [Neil Hanna Photography]

Elias Quartet in rehearsal for Schubert’s Octet [Neil Hanna Photography]

Band in a Van featuring Tenement Jazz at Crail Harbour. [Neil Hanna Photography]

Helena Kay SIM Trio at Dreel Halls [Neil Hanna Photography]

Crail Church – Gandini Juggling entertain the audience [Neil Hanna Photography]

Elisabeth Leonskaja in rehearsal at Crail Church [Neil Hanna Photography]

Pavel Haas Quartet and Boris Giltburg in rehearsal in Crail Church. [Neil Hanna Photography]

Rapasa Otieno performing in St Ayle’s Anstruther [Neil Hanna Photography]

Rihab Azar performing in St Ayle Anstruther [Neil Hanna Photography]

Pavel Kolesnikov & Samson Tsoyin Crail Church concert. [Neil Hanna Photography]3

Elisabeth Leonskaja, Liza Ferschtman and Ivan Karizna in rehearsal in Crail Church [Neil Hanna Photography]

Shirley Smart Trio in performance Anstruther Town Hall [Neil Hanna Photography]

THUNDERPLUMP FILMSHOW: A SCOTTISH SPECTACULAR

Between September 2021 and May 2022, David Behrens made 9 films for ENF’s BIG PROJECT 2022, Thunderplump.

Travelling Scotland, he filmed all kinds of Scottish weather and landscape, risking ice, storm, snow and gales – as well as the occasional fine day.

This ‘Filmshow’ version brings together some of the most spectacular moments from his journeys.

*Thunderplump: A sudden, heavy shower of rain, sometimes accompanied by thunder and lightning.

N.B. This film is without sound/music since the original was screened at ENF2022 with live music from Neil Brand, The Wallace Collection and three Fife music groups: Fife Youth Jazz Orchestra, StAMP, Tullis Russell Mills Band. We invite you to create your own music to the film…

READ DAVID’S FILMING BLOG HERE: Thunderplump diary

Follow David on Instagram @davidbehrens13

Learn more about ENF’s BIG PROJECTS.

ENF RETREAT INFORMATION

ENF is interested in working with outstanding young artists who have a great idea to suggest and are looking for the kind of support and development possibilities that ENF Retreat can offer. These include A&R, advocacy, practical assistance with logistics/production, support in fundraising, offering performance opportunities and helping seek onward performances. We are looking for artists whose idea will deliver excellent and distinctive work that has potential for onward development or performance and that will make a tangible difference to the artist’s future.

All ENF Retreats involve coming to Fife to work on your ideas; usually we anticipate that the work may take place in bursts over a period of 6-12 months, so we put an upper limit of 10 days in total.
You may invite a mentor or request specialist support, or you may want to involve other musicians/artists – every residency is different.

ENF provides a lot – expenses, accommodation, catering, technical and project support, PR and promotion. We do not pay participants, except if a residency results in a performance in the Festival, in which case we agree a fee.

A successful project is typically –

– solo or chamber scale performance
– realisable within a residency of 10 days within 6-12 months
– Allow the artist to test some new idea, technique or possibility
– Needs this kind of support to be realised (we will not support a simple preparation of a programme or recording.)
– Have potential for further performance / development
– Fits with the ENF’S artistic programme

What we don’t do:

– commission: this is a place to develop ideas, take next steps, take risks
– support simple preparation for a concert programme or album

If you would like to pitch your case, email svend@eastneukfestival.com

ENF 2021 IN PICTURES

Sunset on 2 July we lit huge candles in the labyrinth. A test-drive for 2022…. [Photo: Jackie Chalmers]

Rihab Azar mesmerised us with ancient and modern Oud music [Still from film by Stuart Armitt]

Pianist Paul Lewis thrilled us with Pictures at an Exhibition [Picture: David Behrens]

Young brass players came together for the first time to perform together with members of The Wallace Collection [Photo: David Behrens] See more lovely pictures HERE

Sean Shibe played music from the Balcarres Lute Book actually in Balcarres House – 4 centuries after the book was collated. [Still from film by Stuart Armitt]

Thomas Adès directed the UK premiere of Francesco Coll’s Turia with Sean Shibe and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Sand in your Eye created 3 huge drawings on Elie Beach {Photo by Jamie Wardley, Sand in your Eye]

The Dixie Lee Trio toured the Neuk as our Band In A Van giving pop-up concerts throughout the area [Photo: Colin Hattersley]

LABYRINTH

ENF Director, Svend McEwan-Brown explains why the festival has a labyrinth this year…

I have been hooked on labyrinths for a very long time. I know the word has some unhappy resonances: the Minotaur’s labyrinth (not a happy place), labyrinthine plots (confusing and annoying), labyrinthitis (very nasty), but to me, labyrinths are special places for thinking, playing, and relaxing.

The history of labyrinths is long (read an excellent short overview HERE), and they clearly fill a profound need in humans. They are easy to confuse with (equally ancient) mazes but in fact they are the opposite: a maze is a puzzle to be solved, while a labyrinth is not there to confound you. You can usually see the whole thing, and the path generally only goes one way; the act of walking it has, since ancient times, been an aid to prayer or thought. And for me – Because my brain is made this way – labyrinths are very musical. Listening to a long-ish piece of music is so often like walking a path, encountering melodies and other musical ideas from different perspectives as you move along it. At bottom, that’s why we have a labyrinth at ENF this year. Of course there is another, very current reason, which is that in this time of Covid I’ve been considering all kinds of possibilities for events and happenings that we can deliver safely to enough people for it to make sense to do them. So having something like this which can be in place for months and bring pleasure to many is a wonderful thing.

I’ve had the pleasure of commissioning two labyrinths before, both linked to music and to play. A few years ago in Glasgow, the veteran labyrinth creator Jim Buchanan created a water labyrinth in Glasgow City Halls. Projected patterns on a pool of water delighted all ages from toddlers to the elderly, and played a part in family days and arcane electronica performances equally successfully. Then, in Fife, Hilke McIntyre created a labyrinth which was also a schematic map of the East Neuk.

Laid out in Crail Community Hall, it was around the size of a badminton court and as well as being a beautiful graphic, it encapsulated many aspects of the area, its landscape, history, industries, and towns. Again, its invitation was to walk and enjoy the artwork quietly and peacefully, or to play. Children ran around it; others paced reflectively.

This year’s labyrinth is the first that I have designed myself. Like Hilke, I took inspiration from the East Neuk itself and my starting point was the coastline (also the route of Fife Coastal Path), which famously resembles a Scottie dog’s head. I took that pattern and mapped it out and then drew the rest of the labyrinth from there.

My pattern was taken by Chris Randall, who used GPRS technology to map it onto the wildflower meadow at Kellie Castle. Then he and ENF producer Danni Bastian marked it all up, and the NTS team of gardeners made a cut into the meadow following the pattern.

Aerial photo of the Labyrinth at Kellie Castle by Katie Chalmers

It has some growing to do before it looks its best, but as they continue to mow the pattern from now till July my hope is that, seen from above, the pattern will be increasingly beautiful and from the ground it will provide a very special way of enjoying that lovely space this year. Who knows, we may even be able to have some music there… Even now,  I guess you could (virtually) walk the Fife Coastal Path by following one edge of it – and it would only take you about a minute.

The Mozart Effect

Monday 4 September 2017 was a sunny, homey kind of a day; I did a little work, baked teacakes, gardened, watched some telly. Around 4.30, my left arm suddenly fell heavy and stiff. I could not lift my left foot from the ground. I knew enough to suspect that I was suffering a stroke. Weirdly, the symptoms abated enough for Roy, my husband, to drive me to A&E and for me to walk in under my own steam. A couple of hours later, things looked not so bad – perhaps it was just a scare. We were joking and persuading the medics not to keep me in overnight when the really serious stroke struck. “It’s happening now” I slurred, and saw the junior doctor’s face switch from jolly banter to urgent concern. Then he ran for support.

‘Stroke’ is such a tender word. The experience is oddly painless – things just suddenly stop working. I’ve never actually known anyone who suffered a stroke, never thought about them, and knowing so little made things all the scarier. Should I be saying goodbye to Roy as best I could? If I survived, what might I lose? Mobility, speech, or other bodily and brain functions? There was no telling how bad it might get.

After a sleepless night listening to endless machines go ping in the HDU, things looked a little brighter – at least I was still there and nothing had gotten any worse. I found myself in the Borders General Hospital Stroke Unit, pretty much helpless, disoriented and so, so tired. I’m telling you this only because of what happened next. As I lay there, I found myself in a place I had never ever been. I inherited a strong vein of optimism and pragmatism from my Mother’s side; we are people who get on with things and respond to setbacks by finding another way. Yet here I was, so depressed and turned inwards that I couldn’t even muster enough energy for some solid self-pity. It was a malign, blank inertia, and other than Roy, the only thing I could think of to turn to was music. I remembered reading that listening to Mozart was supposed to bring all kinds of amazing brain benefits, from making your baby more intelligent, to relieving depression. Maybe he could help me. Roy brought me headphones and my phone to the hospital, and it had the Leopold Trio’s recording of Mozart’s late Serenade for string trio K568 on it. I shut my eyes and let it play. An hour later I was a different man.

By any standards, this is a miracle piece – just 3 instruments, 6 movements and a whole world of riches in an hour of music. It edges in so unassumingly, draws you into its play of ideas in a spirit that is generous, serious, genial, warm and intimate at once. It is not attention-seeking. Dramatic touches are few and far between. It’s like spending time with your very best friends. I lost myself in it completely, and truly could not have anticipated its power; it turned me around. At the end of that hour, I had got myself back. I was calmer, outward looking, engaged. Not out of the woods, but eager to start working out where the paths were.

From then on I listened to Mozart every day, it was the soundtrack to my recovery and I would recommend it to anyone as the best anti-depressant available.

One of the things people said to me most often at that time was: “don’t worry about work, don’t give it a thought”. I’m really lucky in that the work I do is also one of my biggest pleasures – the East Neuk Festival is a huge joy to me, so it made no sense to ignore it just when joy was a thing I needed on prescription. September is exactly the time of year when I would normally be pulling it all together, finalising everything ready for a January launch. So, with Mozart in my ears and my phone in hand, I set to work. Finalising the programme is a bit like playing 4-dimensional Tetris, and as piece after piece finds its place, the whole picture takes shape. Looking at this year’s programme for ENF, could you tell that it was put together by mobile phone from a hospital bed using just my right hand? I hope not, but for me ENF 2018 will always be a special one.