Robert Burns was born 250 years ago, and in our anniversary-sensitive times, that gives extra cause for celebration. This tribute set out to be a Burns Night “like no other”, and not only by virtue of coming four days before Burns Night proper. There were no kilts, no haggis and, for much of the evening, no pipes.

The evening formed part of the UBS Soundscapes: Eclectica series, an attempt to foster liaisons, dangerous or otherwise, between classical music and modern folk forms. The curator (an odd word in this context) was composer James MacMillan, a man fiercely proud of his Scottishness but with no time for Little Scotlanders. And so the music, while being utterly Scottish, also looked outwards.

The evening began with a set of duets from fiddler Chris Stout and Celtic harpist Catriona McKay. The violin is the all but universal instrument of joyous lamentation, and at times we might have been in the Cajun heartlands, or in the Romanian mountains.

There were detours to Ireland, Sweden and Norway, and Scotland itself brought its own musical diversity, with particular melodies originating on this or that tiny island.

Stout played with a gorgeously foggy sound, while McKay made the harp do the work of a rhythm section, a guitar, a banjo, a mournful drone. Theirs is a collaboration born of mutual respect and a shared sense of adventure.

To follow, Salsa Celtica, a 13‑piece ensemble that bangs together Cuban salsa and Highland dance, with sundry other traditions, including jazz and balalaika music, making the party even more raucous.

On paper it sounds like a musical car crash; in performance it all made perfect sense. Eamonn Coyne played banjo as if it was the fount of every musical tradition, and Ross Ainslie threw in some free-form pipe playing. If that meant tuning went a bit haywire, no one was complaining; and least of all, no one was asking what it had to do with Burns.