Cambo Saturday – a family day out

STOP PRESS! Latest programme details for the weekend at East Neuk Festival – download it here:

Cambo Weekend brochure PDF

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I speak for the whole ENF team when I say that we love presenting our events all over the East Neuk, trying new places and locations each year. But we have, for quite a while, felt the challenge of creating a true ’Festival’ atmosphere. It’s not like having an event in one place: Pittenweem and Edinburgh both have it in their favour that everything happens within walking distance, and the very air smells of festival. Our events are spread out over a 100 square mile area. That’s quite a different challenge. So, we thought, could we have the best of both worlds. Keep our events spread far and wide, but also plan a special BIG DAY in just one place? A kind of festival centre that we can fill with all kinds of music, literature, ideas, walks, family events and activities, food. Somewhere you can just drop in to enjoy the free entertainment, food and festive atmosphere, or come specially for a specific event. Come for an hour and end up staying all afternoon. If you know ENF you’ll know that our basic response to most things is: try it and see!

Last year we hugely enjoyed working with the Cambo Estate on our potato barn concert. Everyone there was so enthusiastic and helpful, and – even in the face of driving rain, mud, challenging parking and plummeting temperatures – it was a huge success: the most talked about event of the festival. So when we took this new idea to Sir Peter and Lady Erskine we were delighted that they embraced it whole-heartedly.

The big day is the Saturday of the ENF (6 July). What can you expect? Well, Cambo, with its historic house, huge garden, park, woodland and beach, is a magical place to start with. That has been impressed on me more than ever this past year as we have visited the estate over and over again for planning.

Into this magic place we have poured an amazing European premiere of a very special piece of music for the Garden; major nature writers, artists and thinkers talk on aspects of nature and birdlife. Story telling in the magical stables; crafts and family activities, food, drink… from 11am til 6pm there will always be something going on – and you can take time out just to walk the grounds, the beach and the woodland. You can find all the ticketed events listed on our website and we’ll be announcing more details in the run up to July – follow us on facebook and check in here regularly for full details.

And after it’s all over we would love to know what you thought about it. Who doesn’t say that? But we really mean it: if it works this year, and everyone agrees… we could do it twice next year. Or three times…

It’s all about the birds…

I am not big on themes in festivals. I dislike having my cultural experiences over-mediated: a heavily-themed festival can be like being served by a waiter who insists on listing every technique and ingredient on your plate as the food goes cold in front of you. Better to decide for yourself which flavours and textures to relish. That’s a tough discipline or festival directors – to trust your audience enough to step back: don’t direct them so that they miss not a single one of your nuances or deft touches: let them make their own festival from what you offer.

Having said all that… we have a theme this year. Birds. Nature’s musicians – treasured songsters whose rich chorus is slowly falling silent all over the world, even as we watch and hear. People deep in the country are waking up to find no dawn chorus. In my childhood I woke most mornings to a lawn full of urban birds – finches, tits, blackbirds, thrushes mostly – hard at work farming the worms. Now all I see is the occasional sparrow, gull or starling. Even they are under threat.

So between us, Catherine Lockerbie, Jenny Brown and me, we have focused on this grand tragedy befalling our tiny creatures, and we reflect and celebrate them in music, art, writing and ideas. Every idea has a starting point, and for this one it was the opportunity to present music by American composer John Luther Adams to the UK.

The names can be confusing – there are many John Adams in the USA (check any phone book) but for two of them to be major composers is unfortunate. John Luther Adams is slightly younger than John Adams, and musically he is worlds apart. Both men matured musically at a time of magnificent experiment and adventure in American music – the 1960s and 70s. They share some inspirations – not least John Cage, Lamont Young and Lou Harrison. Both tap into a poetic, mystic vein that runs through American art, starting somewhere near Whitman, Dickinson and Emerson. But where JA is most to be found in the world’s great cities working with the great orchestras, JLA is a nature lover, a desert dweller. He lives in Alaska and fills his work with the imagery and inspiration of nature. He asks for strange instrumental combinations; takes music out of the concert hall and in to the open. He works in visual art as well as music. He is a master at giving his musicians freedom to shape the work within the parameters he sets. And the results are simply beautiful.

JLA’s Inuksuit and Songbirdsongs both feature bird song and Inuksuit actually takes place in the open air so there is a goodly chance that actual birds may join in (the gulls are always trying to get in on the act at ENF anyhow: anyone remember the hushed close of Lark Ascending being disrupted by a raucous cackle from the roof?). I will be writing about those pieces plenty in the coming months, for now though I want to make my thanks to Catherine and Jenny and to the artist Lisa Hooper whose gorgeous prints are on display in Crail Church Hall, for the shared passion that has brought together such a rich array of talk, music and art all about the birds this year. I look forward to seeing you there.

Llyr Williams’ CD going down a storm!

Relive a highlight of the 2012 festival – and support the Festival at the same time.

Llŷr Williams took time out of his busy festival schedule in 2012 to record two of Beethoven’s late piano sonatas (Op 109 and Op 110) in the lovely acoustic of Crail Church. The results are very special indeed; it is an East Neuk first and an ENF exclusive and makes a wonderful memento, gift or way to introduce someone to the Festival.

You can order CDs (£10 each) by post, the proceeds of which will go towards making the next East Neuk Festival possible. Download an order form below:

Download Llyr Williams CD Order Form

Alternatively, you can buy a CD from the box office whilst ordering your tickets! Simply ask for the Llyr Williams CD if you are ordering by phone, or visit the CD’s page on Hub Tickets website, as below:

Buy CD online via Hub Tickets website