You know a music festival has come of age when it is able to hire out a top-security Royal Air Force base. But the East Neuk Festival thrives on challenging expectations, and there was certainly little that could be predicted about the encounter at RAF Leuchars between the guttural Mongolian throat-singers Huun Huur Tu with the pure-voiced Orlando Consort, though the promise that a brutalist aircraft shelter would sound as resonant as a medieval cathedral proved a difficult one to assess given the amplification system in use.

That was one part of the festival's Ancient and Modern strand. Another, one magical evening at St Monans, was a pair of world premieres, again delivered by the Orlando Consort. A pity that neither Tarik O'Regan's St Andrews Responsories nor Giles Swayne's Magnificat III quite hit the spot: O'Regan's amiable amble smacked a little of the barber shop, while Swayne's over-embellished setting had enough ideas for at least five Magnificats in its ten-minute span.

The best thing about this festival remains its firm commitment to first-class chamber music. For many, this will have been the year of the Welsh pianist with wizardry at his fingertips, Llyr Williams. Solo, his Janácek (On an Overgrown Path) brimmed with tears and anguish, while his Schubert (the terrifying Sonata in A Minor, D784) was ferociously compelling. But he was as affecting with Alexander Janiczek and David Watkin for a warmly vigorous rendition of Mendelssohn's Piano Trio in D Minor.

Most memorable, though, were the very last performances by the Skampa Quartet in their current configuration. The Czechs were on simply world-beating form, whether teaming up with the Eroica Quartet for a hair-raising chase through Mendelssohn's Octet, or simply doing what they do best: in this case, Janácek's two quartets, the Kreutzer Sonata and Intimate Letters.

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