James MacMillan’s Cumnock Tryst mixes global stars and local talent

It’s only the fourth annual Cumnock Tryst Festival, but already, it seems, audiences in the former Ayrshire mining area are ready and willing to negotiate the uncompromising musical challenges of hardline 20th century modernists Iannis Xenakis, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Per Norgard and Elliott Carter. That’s the confident opinion of the festival’s founder and artistic director Sir James MacMillan, who reckons that such a hard-edged programme of solo percussion music, played by international virtuoso Colin Currie, will go down a treat as a Friday night out in downtown New Cumnock.