Nominee Summary
The Cumnock Tryst is a unique music festival that brings together world-class artists and community participants every year in East Ayrshire. We work with a range of different community stakeholders to provide musical training and education opportunities and offer them the chance to work alongside leading orchestras, composers, and performers. In the past few years, we have also expanded to produce a series of year-round events, including schools workshops, concerts, and other community programmes.
Overcoming Challenges
Classical music often faces certain stigmas in rural and post-industrial communities. Building up trust with the local partners has been a long but carefully managed process. It is also sometimes quite difficult to find suitable venues of a significant scale and infrastructure to adequately support events. We have worked closely with local churches, halls, and schools to build a production timeline that allows us to transform the venues into something spectacular. Travel infrastructure can also be difficult, particularly for artists travelling internationally. We have to carefully manage all travel logistics, and it can be difficult, particularly when there is bad weather that affects train connections in the southwest of Scotland.
Supporting the community
The Cumnock Tryst has allowed local people to engage directly with world-class musicians and composers through a range of different activities, including performances, composition workshops, and schools programmes. In the past few years, we have expanded from being a once-a-year festival into a genuinely year-round cultural institution, providing vital access to high-quality artistic opportunities that would otherwise be unavailable in the East Ayrshire community.
Ethical/environmental standards
We uphold the highest ethical and environmental standards as part of our commitment as a Creative Scotland multi-year funded organisation. All of our projects are designed to have minimal environmental impact, and we abide by a very strict code of conduct in our fair work, equity, diversity and inclusion policies that prioritise the dignity of each and every participant.
