Cumnock Tryst 2025
27th May 2025
I am delighted that the Bill Jones Renaissance Swing Band has been invited to perform at The Cumnock Tryst in October this year. We have been booked to appear in The Dumfries Arms Hotel on Thursday 2nd October starting at 9.30pm. Follow this link for more detail.
For a few autumn days the East Ayrshire town of Cumnock becomes a meeting place for music. Founded by composer James MacMillan in the town where he grew up, The Cumnock Tryst brings some of the world's greatest musicians into local venues, churches and halls, and places the community’s creativity alongside in a broad and joyful programme that inspires music makers and music lovers of all backgrounds and experience. The Festival’s name, The Cumnock Tryst, was inspired by a piece of music James MacMillan wrote in the 1980s when he was still living in Ayrshire. This was a setting of William Soutar’s love poem, The Tryst. Tryst is an old Scots word which means a meeting place, or a romantic rendezvous. The town of Cumnock itself ties into this sense of coming together as its Gaelic name, comunn achadh, means place of the confluence, as the town sits where the Glaisnock River and the Lugar Water meet. For four packed days and nights The Cumnock Tryst is a meeting place for music-lovers. It now also promotes a year round concert series and community engagement programme, bringing even more opportunities to experience the joy of live-music-making and the benefits of composition.
James MacMillan said:
“When we launched in 2014, we saw music as a way of regenerating a part of Ayrshire which has suffered decline in recent decades. Music can transform communities as well as the interior lives of individuals, and so it seems to be proving for us. In the last year we have won major awards, including a Sky Arts Award and a second RPS Award. And what a rich menu of music we have this year. On the Friday of our festival we present the next edition of our work with young people with additional support needs in Cumnock, along with Drake Music Scotland and Hebrides Ensemble. Our wide-ranging commitment to our young musicians can be seen in the visit by NYOS Camerata, and our range of wonderful musicians can be experienced throughout the festival in concerts by The Cumnock Tryst Ensemble, Roderick Williams and the Carducci Quartet, the BBC SSO in concert with our Festival Chorus, the great Scottish pianist Alasdair Beatson and incredible choral performers Sansara and the Academy of Sacred Music. We also have inspiring jazz and Scottish traditional music for our late night events in Dumfries Arms Hotel.
Come and join us for our eleventh Tryst!”
Tickets for the 2025 festival are on sale Monday 2 June via www.thecumnocktryst.com
with priority booking for Friends and Patrons from 24 May.
Watch The Cumnock Tryst Festival 2025 Trailer
