A Dutch lady at breakfast on learning that there was a saxophone congress in town exclaimed "That must be fun, for sure a lot more fun than ours."

"What's yours?"

"Theology."

No answer to that.

And it was fun yesterday, especially when the sun shone and there was music in the streets.

I heard a great variety of stuff in the events I went to.  As I was leaving a German quartet's tribute to Sting recital I overheard a guy saying "Well that's music, not like all that avant garde stuff."

I have some sympathy with that view but you can be pleasantly surprised.  John Cage and Gyorgy Kurtag are not known for producing music that's a bundle of laughs so when an American composer introduced the piece that her piano, violin and alto trio were about to play by saying that those two were the major influences on her work some gritting of teeth seemed called for.

In fact it was a beautiful, gentle, soulful mix of silence and ethereal tones that left the audience, myself included, delighted.

Totally different from the foot-stomping jazzy compositions of Barbara Thompson that filled the Byre theatre to capacity late in the evening for the final feast of another great day.