EDINBURGH’S festivals may be world-renowned, but Peebles is also very proud of its annual showcase for the arts and creativity.

One of the highlights of this annual event, now renamed Creative Peebles Festival, is the Festival Concert presented by local chamber music society Music in Peebles.

This year’s concert, at 7.30pm on Thursday, September 1, is a celebrity piano recital that exemplifies the ethos of the festival, combining outstanding Scottish-based musicianship with great music from further afield.

Edward Cohen is one of Scotland's finest, and most versatile, young pianists.

Highly regarded as a solo recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist, he is also a respected teacher at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and is in great demand as pianist for Scotland's leading choirs, including the Edinburgh Festival, RSNO and SCO Choruses. Edward is noted for his broad and eclectic repertoire, ranging from the baroque to new commissions and occasionally his performances even include electronics and 'Radiohead'! He is particularly renowned as a leading advocate of the great and unjustly neglected 19th century French composer Charles Alkan, a contemporary of Liszt and Wagner.

For his Festival Concert, Edward has devised a fascinating programme, bringing together music by French, Russian and Ukrainian composers. The culmination of the recital is his authoritative performance of Alkan's masterpiece, the 'Grande Sonate', described as "one of the pinnacles not only of Alkan’s output but of the entire Romantic piano repertoire". Sub-titled “Les quatre âges”, this epic work is a highly virtuosic depiction of four stages of life, at the ages of 20, 30,40 and 50.

As an appetiser for this substantial ‘main course’, Edward has chosen a sequence of attractive short pieces, including some unfamiliar gems awaiting discovery.

The French strand is to be found in Debussy’s wonderfully evocative ‘Reflets dans l’eau’, whilst the Russian content is in the form of three miniatures (in length if not in spirit!) by Rachmaninov, and the final Prelude and Fugue by Shostakovich, widely considered his greatest work for the piano. The recital opens with three Bagatelles by the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov, beautiful, tender music that is sure to draw you under its haunting spell.

Like all Music in Peebles concerts, this recital is open to everyone and all are welcome.

Tickets are available from the Eastgate Theatre box office (01721 725777) and cost £14 for adults, but only £7 if accompanying a child under 12. Entry is free for all school pupils.

Further information about this and other Music in Peebles concerts can be found at www.musicinpeebles.org.uk.