| Date and venue | Title | Submitted by |
|---|---|---|
| 23-Sep-2012 St Mary's Parish Church | Lammermuir Festival: Fauré Requiem with Northern Sinfonia and NYCOS | Alan Coady |
 If three years is sufficient to constitute a tradition then, traditionally, a Lammermuir Festival ends with a sell-out concert in St. Mary’s Parish Church, Haddington. And if year three is sufficiently far along the line to break with tradition, then this year’s surprise was not box-office focused but based on choice of repertoire; not a Bach/Handel finish, but an all-French programme.
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| 21-Sep-2012 St Mary's Parish Church | Lammermuir Festival: Haydn by candlelight | Alan Coady |
 Stars of Lammermuir’s 2011 Musical Journey, the Navarra Quartet returned for two 2012 dates. The first of their engagements featured a single Haydn work: The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross (1787).
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| 16-Sep-2012 St Michael's Kirk | Lammermuir Festival: Master and Commander | Alan Coady |
 The Lammermuir Festival has a proven track record of experimentation; venues and works frequently surprise, and this year has seen some branching out in the format of events.
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| 15-Sep-2012 Dunbar Parish Church | Lammermuir Festival: Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Ravel, Rodrigo and Mozart | Alan Coady |
 Picture the scene: Dunbar Parish Church nearing the end of major renovation. Looking heavenward, one sees two RSJ-type structures which appear to have facilitated the removal of all impediments to vision and light, the latter refracted through stained glass windows. In one corner of of the resulting square, facing the opposite corner, sit the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. The audience form a broad L-shape around them.
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| 15-Sep-2012 St Anne's Episcopal Church | Lammermuir Festival: Maxwell String Quartet and guitarist Allan Neave | Alan Coady |
 There’s nothing like a festival coming to your neighbourhood to highlight gaps in local knowledge. Despite having grown up 12 miles from Dunbar, I’d never spotted, far less entered, St Anne’s Episcopal Church. It is a gem of a place with a superb chamber music acoustic. The separation and blend of instruments heard there would require a hi-fi several hundred times the price of a ticket for this live performance.
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| 14-Sep-2012 St Mary's Parish Church | Lammermuir Festival: Dunedin Consort's St John Passion | Alan Coady |
 The motto of the Lammermuir Festival, now in its third year, is “beautiful music in beautiful places”. Few settings are more striking than St Mary’s Parish Church in Haddington. The scene of John Knox’s ordination as a Catholic priest, some years before he lit the blue touch-paper of Scottish Reformation, it seemed a resonant setting for one of musical history’s Lutheran landmarks: Bach’s St John Passion.
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| 25-Sep-2011 St Mary's Parish Church | Dunedin Consort and Players | Alan Coady |
 The Closing Concert of the Lammermuir Festival took place in the historic St. Mary's Parish Church, Haddington – the site of John Knox's ordination as a Catholic priest, some years before the volte face which saw him spearheading the Scottish Reformation. An all-Baroque programme was presented by the Dunedin Consort, animatedly directed from the keyboard by John Butt. A noted baroque scholar and author, Butt also provided excellent programme notes on the evening's pieces.
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| 24-Sep-2011 St Andrew's Blackadder Church | A Musical Journey III | Alan Coady |
| The final leg of Lammermuir Festival's Musical Journey brought us within a few metres of the shore, to the church of St. Andrew Blackadder and to arguably the most challenging programme of the day. Contemplation of the end of life informed each piece and the contrasting circumstances, responses and outcomes could be heard in the music.
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| 24-Sep-2011 St Mary's Church | A Musical Journey II | Alan Coady |
 A place of pilgrimage for centuries, St. Mary's Church, Whitekirk, overlooks fields – blonde and cropped at this time of year. The acoustic in this concert was, for me, the Lammermuir Festival's most magical match of medium and venue. The Navarra Quartet resonated richly, without in any way compromising clarity. This was especially true of several sudden chords in Haydn's String Quartet in C Op 54 No 2 (1788). Written for violinist, Johann Tost, who was a colleague during Haydn's employment at Esterházy, this work is something of a showcase for the 1st violinist.Read full review... | ||
| 24-Sep-2011 Dirleton Kirk | A Musical Journey I | Alan Coady |
 A Musical Journey is, in effect, a bonsai version of the Lammermuir Festival: beautiful music, beautiful places and, on this particular occasion, beautiful weather. There were three concerts (one in each of East Lothian's most picturesque and acoustically blessed churches) and the day consisted of: journeys between venues through some of Scotland's most spectacular deciduous and harvest scenery; string quartet, harp and soprano timbres; programming which made sense both discretely and across the day featuring, Haydn, Beethoven, Britten and Menotti.Read full review... | ||
| 23-Sep-2011 St Michael's Kirk | Perfect Partners | Alan Coady |
 In the week when the world of Physics was turned upside-down by neutrinos being found to travel faster than the speed of light, my physics world encountered another first – a carpeted church with a fantastic acoustic! St Michael’s Kirk, Inveresk – situated at the highest point of Musselburgh, East Lothian - played host to a sold-out concert featuring The Scottish Ensemble and their special guest, trumpet maestra, Alison Balsom.
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| 20-Sep-2011 Lennoxlove House: Great Hall | Bach and Beyond | Alan Coady |
 Janette Beckman.jpg) You might think that a programme containing Bach and 20th/21st century composers would suggest an evening of unconnected extremes. Nothing could be further from the truth in the case of Jennifer Koh's Bach and Beyond recital, given in Lennoxlove House, Haddington as part of the Lammermuir Festival. Positioned in front of the yawning fireplace in the Great Hall of this 700-year old stately home, she opened with Bach's Partita in E major, BWV 1006. This was the beginning of her programme's stated return journey from light to darkness.Read full review... | ||
| 18-Sep-2011 Stenton Parish Church | Less is more | Alan Coady |
| The lively acoustic of the lovely Stenton Parish Church, 23 miles east of Edinburgh, hosted the fourth of sixteen concerts in this year's Lammermuir Festival, the motto of which is Beautiful music – beautiful places. I have to confess to a carbon sin of the mind in being prepared to undertake the 46-mile car journey to hear 5 minutes of music by György Kurtág. Had his Signs, Games and Messages been the sole item in the concert I'd still have felt the car seat/church pew ratio to be worth it. Read full review... | ||
