2026 East Neuk Pageant plans tribute to the late John Wallace with a piece he needed to carry to the pageant however by no means achieved

John Wallace in rehearsals for ThunderPlump (East Neuk Pageant Huge Challenge 2022) with a younger performer from StAMP (Photograph: Neil Hanna)

The trumpeter John Wallace, who died in January this yr, was born in Fife and his father performed within the Tullis Russell Mills Band for 65 years with Wallace rapidly becoming a member of the junior band. Wallace remained pleased with his Fife roots and an important participant in musical life within the Kingdom of Fife. He instigated a number of neighborhood oriented tasks together with StAMP, the College of St Andrews’ outreach programme.

StAMP has been an everyday collaborator of the East Neuk Pageant for a few years, while Wallace took a number one position on three of the Festivals ‘Huge Initiatives’ which introduced collectively skilled and neighborhood musicians as a part of the primary pageant programme. These included the award-winning De Profundis which Wallace wrote with McEwan-Brown in 2017, to rejoice the lives of Fife’s miners and produce collectively massed brass bands, alongside Wallace’s personal ensemble The Wallace Assortment.

One undertaking that Wallace mentioned greater than as soon as (however by no means achieved) with Pageant Creative Director Svend McEwan-Brown was a efficiency of Stockhausen’s five-trumpet Donnerstags-Abschied written for the tip of Stockhausen’s opera Donnerstag aus Licht. 

This yr’s East Neuk Pageant, which runs from 1 to five July 2026 will characteristic two performances of Stockhausen’s  Donnerstags-Abschied with Marco Blaauw main an ensemble fashioned of John Wallace’s buddies and colleagues. Climate allowing will probably be carried out open air at sundown on Saturday 4 July, and indoors previous the closing live performance on Sunday 5 July.

One other proud son of Fife is well known in In search of Oswald, exploring the life and music of James Oswald, the 18th century composer who was born in Crail. The occasion mixes phrases from Tom Davison (who has written a guide about Oswald) with music from Karen Marshalsay, harps, Kathryn Nicholl, fiddle, Chris Miles, voice.

The pageant opens with an intriguing live performance when Scotland’s best jazz pianist Fergus McCreadie will play Brahms’ 4 Ballades, Op. 10 earlier than taking these as inspiration for his personal improvisations plus duos and trios with Su-a Lee (cello) and Donald Grant (violin).

There are three quartets on the pageant, Opus13, Cuarteto Quiroga, Calidore Quartet and the three will share out Beethoven’s Razumovsky Quartets and unfold performances throughout the Saturday. Alongside thise, Cuarteto Quiroga is joined by Christian Zacharias for Schubert’s Trout Quintet, Opus 13 quartet play Photographs from the Floating World, a chunk by Swedish composer Britta Byström impressed by Njál’s Saga, and Calidore Quartet carry out Arietta, a piece by Mark-Anthony Turnage impressed by Beethoven’s late piano sonatas.

Different music consists of Llŷr Williams performing Schumann’s Kreisleriana, the Tallis Students in all three Byrd lots, and the pageant ends with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Maxim Emelyanchev in Mozart, Haydn and Stravinsky together with ‘No phrase from Tom’ (from The Rake’s Progress) with soprano Anna Dennis.

Different guests to the pageant embody Kolektif Istanbul, a conventional Turkish marriage ceremony band, oud participant Rihab Azar who’s joined by Scottish fiddle participant Donald Grant, Scottish/Egyptian music from the Ayoub sisters, and English Live performance Winds in Mozart serenades.

Full particulars from the pageant’s web site.