NICOLA BENEDETTI always feels she is coming home when she returns to Cumnock.

The violinist who is patron of the Cumnock Tryst, which grows in stature and size each year, was in town to perform at Trinity Church for the 2016 staging of the festival.

Taking time out of an increasingly busy schedule, she flew up from London to play the concert before a full house of 200 people and spoke to the Chronicle between rehearsals.

She said: “We have been performing in London, and have had concerts every night this week in west end venues.

“I have kept in touch with the Tryst over the past few years through Sir James, while my mother went to school around here, as did many of her family.

“There are many childhood memories for me, coming here several times a week, and at the weekend to the family’s home which was on the outskirts of Cumnock.

“They had a little cottage and these are among the best memories I have of growing up and coming to this area.”

Her most recent released album was appropriately called Homecoming – A Scottish Fantasy, which she described at the time as ‘a deeply personal recording’.

“It’s not often that a classical musician from Scotland has the good fortune of playing music from home, an opportunity I have greatly cherished over the last six months,” she added.

In the lead up to Friday’s concert in the intimate setting of Trinity Church in Ayr Road, Ms Benedetti revealed that she had been playing similar-sized places in London.

“We have been playing in smaller venues in London all week. I enjoy playing these concerts as well as larger ones. You make the best music you can make wherever you are.

“For me personally, it is far more to do with the people I am playing to. I always say that music does not really depend on any kind of grandeur.

“It is more about the quality of the music-making itself, which can take place anywhere — in the most random of circumstances. Trinity Church here in Cumnock is beautiful and I was looking forward to playing in it,” Ms Benedetti said.

Waiting to greet the Ayrshire-born musical maestro at the church was Tryst director, Cumnock’s own Sir James Macmillan, who chatted briefly to her before she started rehearsing.

A few hours later, a packed audience enjoyed a two-hour performance by the Benedetti Elschenbroich Grynyuk Trio, which was for many the highlight of the Tryst.

With her trio partners Leonard Elschenbroich, cello and Alexei Grynyuk, piano, they played pieces by Ravel and Brahms, as well as a new work by Mark Anthony Turnage.

Sir James said: “When Nicola won the BBC Young Musician of the Year more than a decade ago, Scotland was rightly proud.

“She grew up in West Kilbride and has family links with East Ayrshire too. She has gone on to a stellar international career, but has never forgotten her roots.

“In this concert, with her esteemed colleagues, we heard her as a brilliant chamber musician.”