All this week (19 – 28 June) the St Magnus Festival, held in Kirkwall and Stromness in Orkney, has been celebrating its 50th anniversary. It was founded as a result of the composer Peter Maxwell Davies, later the Master of the Queen's Music, moving to the islands and forming a creative partnership with the Orcadian poet George Mackay Brown. The result was a series of works examining Orkney's narrative and musical heritage in very 20th century language.
In the half century since, the festival has had several artistic directors but it has stayed true to its roots, covering music vaguely within the 'classical' genre with an emphasis on Scotland and the Nordic countries, as well as contemporary composers and a good dose of the repertoire that audiences in Orkney would not hear during the rest of the year.
