The area round Loch Shiel offers a series of imaginative chamber music venues ranging from the awe-inspiring to the picturesque, and festival programmes are devised to match.

In 2006 we staged a concert at Glenfinnan railway station, featuring Steve Reich’s “Different Trains” performed by the Smith Quartet; other highlights that year included sumptuous music for string octet by Mendelssohn and Glière, and Charles’
arrangements of Shostakovich’s haunting 14th Symphony and Glière’s Concerto for Coloratura Soprano, with Wilma Macdougall displaying agility and gorgeous lyricism inequal measure.

 In 2007 we celebrated the Highland Year of Culture with a major commission: five composers from widely varying backgrounds - James Clapperton, Kenneth Dempster, Christine Hanson, Bendik Hofseth and Alejandro Schwarz - were each given the same source material, the lament “Mo run geal og” and invited to respond to it however they wished. The result was “Lady Chisholm’s Songbook”, for which Glenfinnan Church was packed to the rafters. The entire roll of Arisaig Primary School also took part in the Festival, with two children’s operas by Kenneth Dempster, and James Clapperton performed Charles Ives’ monumental “Concord Sonata” at the Ardnamurchan Natural History Centre.

2008 saw us explore early music, from the 14th century onwards, in the expert company of Red Byrd joined by local clarsach magician Ingrid Henderson. Particularly memorable was their presentation of a “secret mass” by William Byrd, at Kinlochmoidart House. At the end of the week we shoehorned Anton Bruckner’s majestic 7th Symphony into Glenfinnan Church, thanks to an ingenious arrangement by some of Schoenberg’s friends and the amazing artistry of the Loch Shiel Philharmonic Ensemble.

In 2009 we featured the music of one of Britain’s great romantics, Arnold Bax; he spent many creative months at the hotel overlooking the Morar Sands, which gave us the idea for our first Festival walk! Bax’s biographer, Lewis Foreman, gave a wonderfully illuminating lecture on the man and his music.

 In 2010 we commissioned again: "The Sound of Glenborrodale" for 10-piece brass, written by Iain Ballamy, Guy Barker, Gary Carpenter and Peter Cowdrey. Spectacular Glenborrodale Castle opened its doors for an action-packed “Family Gala Day”. The
festival culminated in Glenfinnan with a jaw-dropping production of Benjamin Britten's musical drama “Noye’s Fludde” featuring children from 27 “local” schools, James Naughtie as the Voice of God, animal head-dresses made by artists round the world, sublimely talented professional singers and a spectacular stage set! Our production was later featured on BBC2’s The Culture Show.

2011 saw, amongst many other delights, ground-breaking jazz featuring Norwegian composer Thomas Strønen and British trumpet virtuoso Tom Arthurs, tango legend Astor Piazzolla brought memorably to life by Patrick Lannigan and Mr McFall’s Chamber, a staged production of Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale”, and hauntingly beautiful songs by Mahler, Britten and others from Ilona Domnich, Christopher Josey and the Loch Shiel Philharmonic Ensemble.

2012’s festival was hosted by Charles’ new chamber ensemble, Florin, which itself grew out of the ensemble that performed Bruckner in 2008. Florin is a string trio at heart, and combined with three guests - Helena Rose, Duncan Strachan and Susan Frank - presented music both familiar and unfamiliar, from the sublime beauty of Mozart’s Divertimento K.563 to the devastating power of Alfred Schnittke’s String Trio from 1985.