The Cumnock Tryst has announced that the talented Scottish pianist, Steven Osborne, will now headline this year’s festival.

He will replace soprano Danielle de Niese, who can no longer perform. All tickets already bought for the Saturday evening concert on October 5 at Trinity Church will still be valid.

Osborne will play Beethoven’s Sonatas Op. 109, 110 and 111, the last three of the32 sonatas that this iconic composer wrote over the course of his career. The pianist released his interpretation of these sonatas in May on the Hyperion label to wide critical acclaim. Gramophone Magazine described his recording as a “magnificent achievement” and that “Osborne’s kinship with the composer is everywhere apparent and he conveys the vast contrasts of the last three sonatas unerringly”. Fiona Maddocks of The Observer noted of the recordings that “[Osborne] captures Beethoven’s humanity, tumult and crazed fervour”.

Sir James MacMillan, artistic director of The Cumnock Tryst said: “Steven Osborne is one of the most revered pianists on the planet these days. He is also a Scot. He brings some of the most sublime music in the repertoire to Cumnock. Beethoven is one of the first names that comes to mind when one thinks about classical music. His late works, like these last three piano sonatas, are like music from Heaven - extraordinary, visionary works which probe the borderlands between the human and the sacred. I’ve always dreamed that The Cumnock Tryst would be able to present a programme like this.”

The sixth Cumnock Tryst will take place from October 3-6 in and around the village. This year’s concerts range from new work from Jay Capperauld and Gillian Walker, and informal evenings at the Dumfries Arms Hotel including Barbara Dickson and the Farmers Choir. The Cumnock Tryst welcomes a group of musicians as its resident artists – this year Mr McFall’s Chamber – and also forefronts music education as part of the main programme. This includes the chance for audiences to see inside the compositional process in a public masterclass.