Sala: St Mary's Parish Church, Haddington

Bringing the Philharmonia is the most ambitious thing the Lammermuir Festival has ever done, yet it felt like a natural next step for a festival that's growing in stature.

In their Lammermuir Festival debut, I Fagiolini strike spiritual and musical gold with the Monteverdi Vespers... at least in the first half.

Phantasm in an intimate, late night Art of Fugue for consort of viols. 

Tender Sibelius, Mozart brimming with personality and heroic Beethoven in the opening concert of the sixth Lammermuir Fetival. 

A deeply moving evening of Russian choral treasures from Nigel Short's Tenebrae.

National Youth Choir of Scotland Chamber Choir and Lammermuir Festival Players delight in an imaginative programme of French and Estonian sacred music.

Since reading Stravinsky’s assertion (in Poetics of Music) that “The more constraint one imposes, the more one frees oneself from the chains that shackle the spirit”, this paradox has fascinated me.

I’ve never before dreamt of being a fly on the wall during early discussions of festival programming, but this concert really set me thinking. Two minor-key works? One instrument? Ten o’clock on a Saturday night? The element which reframes everything is the Lammermuir Festival’s binary belief in beauty of music and place.