For six lively and exhilarating days at the end of August 2012, the Presteigne Festival's thirtieth anniversary was celebrated in 16 concerts featuring no fewer than nine new specially commissioned pieces, most of them from composers already closely associated with this much-anticipated annual event held in and around a modest borders town in Powys. Composer-in-residence Sally Beamish was well represented with a generous selection from her output for instrumental and chamber forces, including the premières of two new arrangements of her earlier works. Each concert was programmed with exemplary care by Artistic Director George Vass, resulting in a rich assortment of contemporary and rarely encountered twentieth-century music together with mainstream repertoire.