East Neuk Festival

East Neuk Festival was the idea of Donald and Louise MacDonald. Having known the area for decades, they knew that its many churches would make great venues for summer music. The first concert in 1999 featured Beethoven’s Septet and Mendelssohn’s Octet, performed by players from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. This led to an annual SCO concert series, “Summer Evenings in the East Neuk”, and then, in 2004, Svend Brown joined them to create the East Neuk Festival.

In the decade since then, they have hosted some of the world’s greatest artists and have steadily developed the range of our activities. Once artists come they often return, relishing the intimacy and close connection with the festival audience. Christian Zacharias has returned regularly since the first festival, as have Llyr Williams and the Belcea and Elias String Quartets. Other distinguished artists include the Alban Berg Quartet, Tokyo String Quartet, The Tallis Scholars and Paul Hillier. Every year sees new events, venues and artists in the East Neuk along with new audience members discovering the Festival. Our audience has grown from around 700 in 2005 to an estimated 25,000, who annually enjoy our events and exhibitions.

The heart of the Festival is classical chamber music, but they also present world, jazz, folk and electronica. In addition to our musical celebrations, theyve commissioned films, exhibitions, art installations and literature events as well as guided walks.