Working Towards A More Accessible Festival

2025 marked an important milestone in accessibility for our Festival as we presented our first-ever dementia friendly concert.  

Listening to and enjoying music is a powerful universal experience. We were proud this year to include a concert in our programme that was designed specifically for people living with dementia, their caregivers, family and friends. This concert, a creative initiative of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO), was delivered in association with Alzheimer Scotland.

Taking place at the Queens Hall, thoughtful tweaks to the standard concert setting created a more relaxed and welcoming environment, including reduced audience capacity and informal cabaret-style seating. Dark areas can be intimidating for people living with Dementia so the house lights remained on, and the audience was free to move around, come in and out as needed and make noise throughout. To help people feel at home, free tea, coffee and cake were brought to attendees in their seats, which proved very popular.   

The audience was welcomed by the Festival’s Discovery and Participation Associate Artist, Lucy Drever, before members of the SCO played a familiar repertoire led by Bassoonist Alison Green. This included a Moment of Mozart, a bassoon improvisation of Scottish tunes, and a calming rendition of 'Entrée de Polymnie' from Rameau's opera Les Boreades. 

Enjoying music shouldn’t have an age limit 
One of our attendees commented, "not many people in their 80s and 90s get to experience new things”, and the overwhelmingly positive feedback from this event proved that wherever you are in your journey, music and culture can be enjoyed at every stage of life. 
We look forward to building on the success of this year’s concert and including more performances in our programme for 2026.