Royal Overseas League and Live Music Now Scotland's festival season promises many treats

The international outfit - the well-endowed London-based Royal Overseas League (ROSL) - even has its own premises at 100 Princes Street, so we're not talking about temporary digs in church hall venues. Nor does its series (16-27 August this year) come without a track record: since 2003, ROSL Arts has been selling out annually at the Fringe, where it is now an established fixture.

So what is it that makes this series stick out from the 50 pages of crammed classical and opera listings in another typically overwhelming Fringe brochure? Partly, it's the sheer level of activity - three concerts a day over nine days, with a two-day weekend break in the middle.

But that would mean nothing without quality to match the quantity. And it's here that the ROSL's 60-year-old record for supporting prodigious young artists bears enormous fruit. As music prizes go, it attracts the cream of the young musical crop, both through its prestigious annual competition and through a series of scholarships. Entrants are mainly from Commonwealth countries, but can equally be drawn from further afield, as this year's showcase Edinburgh line-up reveals. Among it are Chinese-born cellist Dai Dai Wu; the Leonari Trio from New Zealand; South African pianist Ben Shoeman, as well as the many British recipients, who include this year's Gold Medal winner, baritone Jonathan McGovern. He is also the beneficiary of a significant boost in prize money encouraged by this year's ROSL centenary celebrations.

"We doubled the prize money this year to 10,000 for first prize, and 5,000 for the finalists," says ROSL Arts' marketing officer Elle Roberts. "But our support for young musicians doesn't just end with a competition. We programme year-round events for all our finalists and scholarship holders, and even pay them over and above to perform in concerts like the Edinburgh Fringe series." Winners from earlier years are also included in the line-up, reinforcing ROSL's ongoing support of its artists.

Edinburgh appearances this year also include: the winner of the 1998 accompanist prize, New Zealander Stephen De Pledge; the Camarilla Wind Ensemble, winners of the 2008 Ensemble Prize; and James Willshire, son of RSAMD dean of music Havilland Willshire and winner of the 2005 Most Promising Young Pianist Prize.

But with so many disparate soloists and chamber ensembles involved - 23 individual musicians will form the players pool for the Edinburgh series - is there not a danger of this becoming little more than school concert-style free-for-all?

Enter Roderick Lakin, director of ROSL Arts, whose job it is to make artistic sense of this musical miscellany. The emphasis is on creating a cohesive programme, into which the various performers are slotted as and when appropriate.

The formula isn't new. As in previous years, four daily concert slots (9:30am, 2pm, 4pm, 10:30pm) form the template for the nine-day series; three of which are used in any given day. They are linked with food, drink and set composers: the alternating Bach at Breakfast and Beethoven at Breakfast are followed by matching bites to eat, included in the ticket price; Mendelssohn and Chopin after Lunch and Brahms and Mozart at Teatime are served up with tea and shortbread; while Late-night Liszt, Shostakovich and Bartok come with an appropriate night cap - in the case of the Liszt concert, a glass of Hungarian wine.

"Food and music works well," says Roberts. "Breakfast has proved to be particularly popular." But experience has shown it is not unusual for the 100-seat venue to fill up quickly at any time of the day.

The other major Fringe showcase of emergent musical talent is home-grown and ingeniously integrated with the Lewis Chessmen exhibition currently at the National Museum of Scotland (NMS).

The opportunity to add a musical dimension was grasped by Live Music Now Scotland (LMNS), which provides performance opportunities for Scottish musicians seeking a launch pad to a professional career.

Throughout the year, they are engaged in a variety of projects, from playing in residential care homes to community work with young offenders. From 9-28 August, members of the scheme - both traditional and classical performers - will present a series of free daily lunchtime concerts at the NMS, featuring a broad range of music loosely connected to the concept of the Chessmen.

"The National Museum is one of our main partners at Live Music Now Scotland, so it made a lot of sense to latch on to this particular exhibition," says LMNS's director, Carol Main. "We've come up with a musical programme that charts the travels of the chessmen from Norway to the shores of Lewis, ranging from music by Grieg and the Hebridean folk songs arrangements of Marjorie Kennedy Fraser, to a completely new work - The Welcome Return - by traditional musicians Anna Massie and Mairearad Green."

Every day will see a different set of musicians, anything from a flute and harp duo to ensembles such as Alba Brass, who have taken the exhibition link to the extreme with a brass rendition of Benny Anderson's famous anthem from his musical Chess.

The performers may not yet be household names, but bear in mind, says Main, that some of this year's International Festival stars - accordionist James Crabb and pianists Melvyn Tan, Malcolm Martineau and Llyr Williams - were all once unknowns among the apprentice Live Music Now line-up.

All the more reason to go talent spotting among the current squad - whether for free at the NMS, or with a drink and a nibble thrown into the ticket price at the ROSL.

The Royal Overseas League concerts are at 100 Princes Street from 16-27 August (www.roslarts.co.uk); Live Music Now Scotland's free lunchtime recitals at the Museum of Scotland run every day 9-28 August (www.nms.ac.uk/whats_on/fringe_music.aspx)