Lammermuir Festival: From Mach 1 to a Bach one

Hitting a high note: Musicians get ready to play on Concorde

Arts events in unusual locations are becoming more and more commonplace, but a concert on Concorde, taking place as part of the inaugural Lammermuir Festival in East Lothian, Scotland from 10th September, has to be the grandaddy of the lot. The new festival has concerts spread across the county, in venues from smart townhouses to stunning medieval churches, with as much emphasis on beautiful locations as on the music.

The Concorde in question is housed in the National Museum of Flight. The concert (which is being held three times on 18th September) will feature 16th-century brass music from The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint, played by Chris Day on electric guitar, both performed in the aircraft hangar while a specially commissioned, electro-acoustic composition, Go! by Peter Nelson, will be played to audiences sitting on board the Concorde, through headphones. The idea to use the aeroplane came from co-Artistic Director James Waters who discovered that an old friend had got married at the museum.

"We're trying to be like a Finnish festival and back our own guys," says Waters of the Navarra Quartet, National Youth Choir of Scotland, and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, who are all taking part. "The key is combining beautiful music with beautiful places. We've already got plans for castles and a barn next year where we can do even more weird and wonderful things. The holy grail is to do something new every year that causes people to come back. We'll have no trouble doing that." This year's focus though, is on Bach, "because he's the ultimate crossover composer". The festival is also working with young soloists such as cellist Philip Higham and violinist Jennifer Pike to try to attract a young audience.

Highlights include the Scottish Chamber Orchestra opening the festival with programme of Bach and Mendelssohn, and the Dunedin Consort performing Bach's B minor mass with critically acclaimed conductor John Butt.

lammermuirfestival.co.uk