PROGRAMME
THE BIG MUSIC
loch shiel festival 2025
01.05.25 - 04.05.25
featuring:
LOCHABER SCHOOLS PIPE BAND
BRIGHDE CHAIMBEUL | maxwell quartet
KIRSTY GUNN | ROO GEDDES & NEIL SUTCLIFFE
LOCHABER WRITERS | FRANCES WILKINS | kristine kennedy
Welcome to our 2025 programme - A celebration and exploration of traditional Highland culture through inspiring musical performances.
PROGRAMME & TICKETS
Please note:
• Upon selecting “book tickets”, you will be directed to Eventbrite, our ticket selling provider. An additional booking fee applies to the stated ticket prices below. This year, we are introducing a Festival Pass which will allow you to avoid multiple booking fees. Details on Eventbrite.
• Children under 16 are eligible for free entry to the festival and do not need to book - with the exception of the Children’s Music Workshop at the Ariundle Centre on 3rd May. .
• Tickets will also be available to buy on the door at our events (subject to availability). However, booking in advance is highly recommended to avoid disappointment. Some of our venues have very limited capacity and sell out very quickly.
THURSDAY 01 MAY 2024 18:00
glenfinnan viaduct | starting at the viaduct & monument car park
Opening Event: Kirsty Gunn, Margaret McMaster, and the Lochaber Schools’ Pipe Band : The Big Music
The 2025 Festival opens in spectacular style on the shores of Loch Shiel, under the world-renowned Glenfinnan Rail Viaduct, with a celebration of the great piping traditions of Lochaber. Guest novelist Kirsty Gunn, author of the 2012 novel The Big Music, is joined by local piper Margaret McMaster, and invites us in to her novel’s world of haunting solemnity, inspired by the great Piobearachd tradition.
A short walk will then lead us along the path to the famous Glenfinnan viaduct, an icon of our festival, to experience the awesome sound of the Lochaber Schools’ Pipe Band out in full force. What a way to open our 2025 festival!
book tickets: free | booking required
friday 02 may 2025 19:30
glenfinnan church
Brighde Chaimbeul & the Maxwell Quartet: Carry them With Us
Brighde Chaimbeul, born and raised on the Isle of Skye, is at once a great tradition bearer of Gaelic piping, and a groundbreaking pioneer, expanding the possibilities of the instrument in ever more challenging and mesmerising ways. She joins forces here with the Maxwell Quartet to perform music from her 2023 album Carry Them With Us, as well as some sneak peeks at her forthcoming album, Sunwise, due for release in July 2025. The Maxwell Quartet and Brighde make for powerful collaborators and have performed together across the UK and Europe in recent years. Not to be missed!
book tickets: £18.00 | free to under-16s
friday 02 may 2025 21:00
prince’s house hotel
Loch Shiel Folk Session (Brighde Chaimbeul/Maxwell Quartet)
Join us for a post-concert session at the Prince’s House Hotel in Glenfinnan. Featuring piper Brighde Chaimbeul and the Maxwell Quartet, with readings from Kirsty Gunn, this is sure to be a great evening of tunes and conversation, celebrating the session tradition of the Highlands & Islands.
book tickets: free (booking advised)
saturday 03 may 2025 10:00
glenfinnan jetty hut
Kirsty Gunn: Writers’ Masterclass
Kirsty Gunn is a novelist, essayist, short story writer, and professor of creative writing. We are delighted to welcome her to the festival this year as a special guest, and the inspiration behind this year’s festival title. Held in this cosy community venue on the water’s edge, author Kirsty Gunn discusses her latest book, ‘Pretty Ugly’, and shares her knowledge and expertise on writing techniques, providing a golden opportunity for aspiring writers to develop their skills.
book tickets: £25.00/£15.00 | limited availability
saturday 03 may 2025 | 11:00
ariundle centre, strontian
Roo & Neil: Family Music and Storytelling Workshop
Join Roo & Neil for an adventure in musical storytelling in the magical setting of the Ariundle Oakwoods of Strontian! With activities and music for all ages, this is particularly recommended for children from 3-8 years, but all are welcome.
Roo Geddes and Neil Sutcliffe are Live Music Now Scotland artists who combine their shared experience across Classical, Folk and Jazz to create original music for violin and accordion. Born into families of educators, both musicians are passionate teachers and their pedagogy significantly informs their identity as artists. They work with students from a diverse range of ages and abilities in both private and community-music settings.
book tickets: £5.00 per child (accompanying adults free)
buffet lunch available after workshop: £10 per person
saturday 03 may 2025 13:30
ariundle centre, strontian
Roo Geddes & Neil Sutcliffe: Storytellers
Following their family workshop at Ariundle, Roo & Neil bring a 60 minute concert programme featuring a wide range of their own compositions. Growing up surrounded by traditional music, they enjoy sharing their love of folk tunes and the stories attached to them with local and international audiences.
Expect music inspired by landscape and people, and the ways in which music can evoke a sense of place and community. Roo & Neil’s performance involves storytelling alongside musical performance, drawing in listeners of all ages in a magical and enthralling way.
book tickets: £12.00 | free to under-16s
buffet lunch available at 12:00 prior to concert: £10 per person
saturday 03 may 2025 19:30
resipole studios
Maxwell Quartet: The Music of Home
Fresh from the huge success of their third album release of Haydn string quartets and Scottish folk tunes, the Maxwell Quartet explores music from across the centuries including Haydn’s ‘Zingarese’ influenced Opus 20 no. 4, and Dvorak's String Quartet in G, Opus 106, composed upon his return to his homeland of Bohemia, after a period living in America. The Maxwells bring together classical and folk music, believing that the string quartet is the ultimate place for the two styles to co-exist.
The concert will feature informal Q&A between the musicians and local artists whose work is on display at the Gallery.
book tickets: £18.00 | FREE TO UNDER 16S
sunday 04 may 2025 12:00
the boathouse, roshven house
Lochaber Writers & Peaks: Music and Stories
Local writer Stephen Carruthers leads the Lochaber Writers Group in a sharing of new writings specifically composed in response to the 2025 programme. This local community group hosts regular workshops and sharings, offering feedback and encouragement for new writing in Lochaber. After a successful first collaboration with the festival in 2023, the group returns to reflect on this year’s theme, with storytelling and tradition at its heart. Alongside the showcasing of their works, we are delighted to welcome the duo Peaks (violinist George Smith and cellist Duncan Strachan, both of the Maxwell Quartet), to perform their new material based upon folk stories from the Outer Hebrides.
book tickets: £12.00 | under-16s free
sunday 04 may 2025 15:30
glenfinnan church
Maxwell Quartet: Hymns and Psalms
The Maxwell Quartet’s newest programme, Hymns, brings together spiritual and sacred works that span the centuries, in the beautiful atmosphere of Glenfinnan Church. From Gaelic Psalms sensitively reworked by the quartet themselves, to a selection of hymns by William Byrd reworked by contemporary British composer Edmund Finnis, and finishing with Ludwig van Beethoven’s late quartet in A minor, Opus 132, which at its heart contains the ‘Heiliger Dankgesang’ - one of the most spiritual and profound pieces of music that Beethoven composed. The parallels found in these distinct traditions are remarkable and the Maxwell Quartet weave a powerful story through their programming, in their final performance at the 2025 festival.
book tickets: £18.00 | FREE TO UNDER 16S
sunday 04 may 2024 18:00
glenfinnan church
Frances Wilkins & Kristine Kennedy: Seinn Spioradail
Scotland is home to an incredible wealth and variety of sacred song traditions with unique and varied histories, providing soundtracks to peoples’ daily lives for generations. In this combined talk and performance, ethnomusicologist Frances Wilkins, together with Gaelic singer Kristine Kennedy, explores some of these traditions including Gaelic psalmody, hymnody and bàrdachd.
Dr Frances Wilkins, a Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology at the Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, has spent the last six years undertaking fieldwork in the West Highlands and Western Isles and exploring sacred and spiritual singing in the region. She has been compiling and recording Gaelic song traditions, including hymnody, Gaelic psalmody and spiritual bardachd which are diminishing in Hebridean communities.
book tickets: £10.00 | FREE TO UNDER 16S
sunday 04 may 2024 20:00
prince’s house hotel
Loch Shiel Folk Session (Frances Wilkins/Maxwell Quartet/ Kristine Kennedy)
Join us for a drink and a chat with the artists as we round the festival off in our favourite bar, the Prince’s House Hotel!