Sound Festival 2026

Sound Festival 2026 runs from Thursday 22 to Saturday 24 October across Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, with a wider ten-day programme of new and experimental music spread across the city and the surrounding area. It's put on by sound, the new-music organisation based at Woodend Barn in Banchory, and the line-up pulls together new classical, jazz, electroacoustic music and sound art. The festival works with Aberdeen Archives, Gallery and Museums, so the music reaches beyond the usual concert halls and into some far less conventional spaces.

The programme kicks off on Thursday 22 October with Ensemble Haar playing at 12.45pm. Running throughout the festival, from Thursday 22 to Saturday 24 October, is the soundwalk Cainnt nan Eun/The Language of the Birds — a piece you can experience on your own terms across those three days rather than at a single set time. Friday 23 October brings two more concerts: Leona Jones performs apeiron at 1.00pm, followed by Victoria Crowe and Gemma McGregor with Orkney Sequence at 3.00pm.

Between the lunchtime and mid-afternoon slots, there's a good spread of styles to pick from. If you're around on Thursday, you've got Ensemble Haar to start the day; if you're out on Friday, you can catch Leona Jones and then Crowe and McGregor. And the soundwalk Cainnt nan Eun/The Language of the Birds stays open from Thursday through to Saturday, so you can fit it in whenever suits you best. The whole thing is run by sound, based at Woodend Barn in Banchory, and the programme brings new classical, jazz, electroacoustic music and sound art to concert halls and some far less usual spaces.