This year's event offers some exciting new fringe developments, promises Michael Tumelty

OVER the years - the decades - the annual Perth Festival has been nothing if not consistent. Though it tends to be referred to in less than complimentary terms by trendy up-marketeers or avant-garde wannabees (who snipe only from the sidelines), the festival has stuck to its guidelines and developed its own format.

It was always a mainstream festival, and one of the most interesting facts about its structure, from day one, was the way it was run.

The festival was created - following an observation by my colleague, Conrad Wilson, that Perth was a festival city without a festival - by a group of local businessmen.

And that key fact - that they were businessmen with an interest in the arts - became one of the elements that gave the festival a particular strength where other arts organisations traditionally flounder: economics. The Perth Festival always balanced its books; it always operated within budget. The concept of a Mayfest or Jazz Festival financial disaster happening to Perth is unthinkable.

And they were - and are - a refreshing lot, these businessmen. Completely without artistic pomposity, preciousness or pretension, they were always a tonic, down-to-earth and free of either the angst-ridden or hyperbolic emotional extremes that characterise so many in the arts. Not for nothing did the Perth venture become universally known as ''the friendly festival''.

But time moves on - this year's is the 27th festival - and so have some of these excellent people, who have recently relinquished their positions on the festival executive, making way for new blood who, of course, bring new ideas.

Not that there are any major structural changes to this year's festival: the basic building blocks are the same as before. But, around the fringes, festival-watchers will notice a little broadening of the populist remit.

It's a few years now since a film strand was introduced, with a short season at the Perth Playhouse. This year, following the influence and recommendation of new, younger board members - who include a young tourism student, a librarian, a psychiatrist, and a chap who works in Virgin Records - there is a further, mild broadening at the edges.

The Studio Theatre at Perth Theatre will be converted into a so-called Speakeasy Club to house a series of late-night comedy, jazz, and blues events. The jazz will be provided by the string-based Hot Club, featuring the doyen of Scottish jazz guitarists, Nigel Clark, alongside violinist Alex Yellowlees, rhythm guitarist John Russell, and bassist Roy Percy. Tam White, with a voice like a bag of coarse-grained gravel, will do the blues shouting with his Shoestring Band.

Within the body of the festival itself, another development will further raunchify the musical edge with the presence of the reliable Jools Holland and his rhythm and blues orchestra - this one a recommendation of the new festival administrator.

These elements aside, all the regular components are present: the annual opera (discussed on this page) will open the festival. Two orchestras - the Berlin Symphony and the Royal Scottish National - will feature early on and at the end of the festival. (The RSNO will close the festival with Saint-Saens's Organ Symphony, which, in the close confines of Perth's City Hall, will be a sonic and decibel experience of some interest.)

However, in and around all the new elements, and the regulars - the annual celebrity recital will be given by French pianist Bernard d'Ascoli - the festival has achieved something of a coup in signing up Austrian violinist Ernst Kovacic for a residency.

Kovacic is no stranger to Scotland, though usually he flies in and then straight out from concerto performances. To have pinned him down and secured four varied concerts from him gives this year's festival a solid steel core.

The Austrian has one of the most interesting repertoires in the business. He goes where most other violinists frankly can't be bothered. Kovacic will give two recitals: one unaccompanied where the music will range from Bach to HK Gruber, and the other, with pianist David Owen-Norris, covering territory from Mozart to Webern.

Then, in two stunning chamber music concerts, Kovacic will first team up with the Dante String Quartet in music by Brahms and Bruckner, then, with another team featuring cellist Raphael Wallfisch, will give a concert in Scone Palace that - a festival highlight, surely - will culminate in Messiaen's great Quartet for the End of Time, written in a prisoner of war camp and one of the most transcendent pieces ever conceived.

n Perth Festival runs from May 21 to 31. Box office and further details: 01738 472706.