A GROUP of students worked with the Cumnock Tryst team to produce a series of social media reports on the event.

The collaboration involved final year broadcast and journalism students from University of the West of Scotland (UWS) creating digital content and radio shows.

Their working partnership builds on a similar arrangement in 2015, when the UWS group recorded a concert with pupils from Hillside and Barshare Primary schools.

This was extended during last month’s Tryst when they covered the four days of the festival as the various events took place at venues in Cumnock and Auchinleck.

Participants in the festival were interviewed and rehearsals were comprehensively documented for the various performances.

Edited footage was then shared on social media which provides a permanent record of 2016’s proceedings, with a seal of approval from festival director, Sir James MacMillan.

He said: “The Cumnock Tryst festival is rooted in the community. We are delighted to have been working in partnership with our local university on this important collaboration.

“The content that the students have created has provided us with a rich record of this year’s festival and is enabling us to share the Cumnock Tryst experience with a much wider audience.

“We are particularly pleased to have been able to establish a partnership that enables the students both to gain professional experience and credits towards their degrees.”

Senior Lecturer in Screen, Broadcast and Journalism at UWS, Elizabeth McLaughlin, was equally delighted with the success of the project.

She said: “Our students are fantastic at working on external engagements and partnership projects and the work with the Tryst is just the latest.

“All the students involved have also worked on the award winning St Mirren TV and radio project so they arrived at Cumnock fully aware of what they needed to do and ready to meet deadlines.”

The students gained valuable experience and content for their final year portfolio submissions and interviewed world-famous musicians including Nicola Benedetti and Sir James MacMillan himself.”