Published: Thursday, 5th June, 2008 08:35
Festival launch full of surprises
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IT’S nearing midnight, it’s pitch black, and the rain is bouncing off the ground with such force that it’s almost hitting folks’ chins on the way up.
Yet the small band of hardy souls braving the elements are having the time of their lives as internationally-renowned violinist Tasmin Little (pictured) is giving the most bizarre concert of her career, and loving every moment of it – even though her soaking-wet fans can’t actually see her.
And it’s all happening in Prestonpans, on a muddy, grassy field just yards from the Forth, as the nearby twin towers of Cockenzie Power Station suddenly light up in excited appreciation, sending glorious beams of red, blue and yellow into the gloomy night sky.
“This 3 Harbours lot certainly don’t do ‘ordinary,’” quipped one of the concert-goers, Gordon Prestoungrange, the Baron of Prestoungrange – someone else not renowned for the mundane.
Earlier that evening, last Friday, the 3 Harbours Festival – an annual celebration of the arts in Prestonpans, Port Seton, and Cockenzie – was launched, with the grand finale an open-air free concert by violinist Tasmin.
But torrential rain and 250-year-old violins don’t get on too well, so Tasmin is forced to retreat into the bowels of the double decker bus-come-mobile stage – as the crowd show their defiance to the rain by belting out a few impromptu verses of Cliff Richard’s Summer Holiday!
The 50 or so revellers are delighted when Tasmin’s heavenly playing finally begins to flow through the speakers, but they just can’t see her.
“This is got to be one of the strangest things I’ve ever done,” she tells the audience, before soon launching into Bach.
“I once played in Zimbabwe close to the Zambezi River, when a rhino appeared and hung about to hear me play – that was almost as strange as this!”
This leading light of the classical music scene was clearly taken by the illuminations in front of her, describing, to a great cheer from the audience, the brightly-lit power station chimneys as “fantastic”.
Her concert may have been short, but it was certainly memorable – including the first public performance of her own, spine-tingling version of The Skye Boat Song, which she dedicated to the small but perfectly formed crowd.
Earlier last Friday evening, Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill had officially declared the May 31-June 8 festival open, at a ceremony at Prestongrange Mining Museum.
He said: “This is about the communities of the three towns coming together, so that everyone, whatever their age, can participate in something quite wonderful, whether it’s music or art.”
The launch evening entertainment featured performances from, among others, East Lothian Youth Dance Company, and Musical Youth. Artist Kenny Munro brought along his decorated Bengali rickshaw, while a huge fleet of paper boats, made by artists from all over the world, were bathed in light so that they could ‘float’.
Festival chairman Andrew Crummy was rightly proud that the event now boasted 300 artists in more than 140 venues.
He said: “It’s extraordinary for a volunteer arts festival to have come so far in three years.”
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