When the French painter Fabienne Verdier told me she’d been invited to explore the relationship between painting and music at the world-famous Juilliard School in New York, I knew straight away that this unusual residency should be documented.

All musicians have particular musical passions, composers, styles or genres to which they are irresistibly drawn. I have many – almost too many at times; but among the most enduring is my love for the music, writing and personality of Robert Schumann. Another important aspect of my musical life – another passion, in fact - is the work I get to do with young musicians.

It’s just a short trip down the A1 from Edinburgh. But East Lothian – with its big skies, wide-open spaces, empty beaches and seemingly inexhaustable supply of quaint, historic villages – feels like a long, long way from the Scottish capital. Especially from the heaving, hectic Edinburgh of the August festivals season – which East Lothian’s Lammermuir Festival follows by just a couple of weeks, managing to maintain the momentum of artistic endeavour, but also providing a far more reflective, considered antidote.

On a sunny afternoon in April four young women pile themselves into a toilet at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. They lock the door. They have come here to make some intimate recordings. Awkward giggles develop into discussion and discussion turns into confession. They are talking about their bodies. Something is always too small or big, or not the right shape.

"I've always thought there's nothing worse than coming to the end of your life and realising that you haven't participated in it, and so I write about people who've done that to a certain extent." Edward Albee has died at the age of 88, having participated in his life far more actively than George and Martha, the couple in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? whose idea of hell is each other.

Pianist Morten Schantz has been a prominent and pioneering figure on first the Danish, then international jazz and fusion scene for more than a decade. With saxophonist Marius Neset and drummer Anton Eger, also members of his new trio, he founded ground-breaking quintet JazzKamikaze in 2005, playing an exhilarating fusion of jazz, rock, funk and hip hop. Since then he has composed and performed across the full range of jazz-related fields, with ensembles including Unicorn, playing North African music, and Segment.  

Istanbul six weeks before the failed coup, the south-west coast of Turkey six weeks after: what's the difference? None that I could see; once past the Turkish Airlines flights, with literature and screen full of the "People's Victory", there was no sign of it at the D-Marin Classical Music Festival on the Bodrum peninsula, centred around the marina in Turgutreis, a 45-minute drive along a very built-up coastline from once-quiet Bodrum.

This exhibition includes one of my images, so I hesitated when I was asked to write about it – but I only hesitated for a moment. I have learned that if you are reluctant to promote your own work other people are even more inclined in that direction, so you should seize any chance you get.

The Green Man Festival is blessed by the expansive beauty of the Brecon Beacons, but this year, it was not blessed by the pagan rain deities. For two out of its four days, the downpour dominated, but the positive news was that this only created a very thin layer of mud, situated at strategic intersection points. The Welsh mountain conditions also led to a bewildering variability, with more outfit changes than we ever dreamt of, as deluge switched instantly to burning sun, wispy wet-flecks to windy scorching.

This is not a standard dance music story. Marquis Hawkes is one of the club music success stories of the past couple of years – since the first release in 2012 on Glasgow's revered Dixon Avenue Basement Jams, there've been many 12" club hits on multiple connoisseurs' labels, and his album Social Housing on the Fabric club's Houndstooth label has soundtracked many people's summer this year, with the artist all the while remaining anonymous.