Star rating: ***
No matter how big in scale the programme, or how far-flung its connections, this festival still finds space for the solo voice - and Tuesday's gig featured two of them, both with a pronounced fondness for traditional Scottish airs and for Burns's songs in particular.

For Ross Kennedy, who opened proceedings, going solo was - so he grinningly maintained - a new and scary experience. But his genial, chatty links, strong voice and unhesitating finesse on the guitar proved he could hold his own, alone.

Kennedy has a passion for piping tunes, so alongside such gentle ballads as Sandwood to Kyle, he wove in some nifty, wonderfully skirling guitar transcriptions with dancing words to match. Rod Paterson's set simply sped by, an engaging mix of droll commentaries, cheeky wee ditties and some thrillingly immediate renditions of familiar Burns songs: Auld Lang Syne, so often drawled mob-handed, became a touchingly conversational farewell between old friends.

Elsewhere, Paterson's warm, unfussy voice swung briskly into his own sly account of Edinburgh with The Auld Toon Shuffle and the New Town Stride, or refreshed the old folk song The Bleacher Lass o' Kelvin Ha' by keeping it clear and simple. Was the inclusion of (another musician's) scurrilous, wickedly witty revenge on Edinburgh's Evening News a warning against any thumbs-down reviews?

Not a bit of it. Paterson knows, without being swanky or bumptious, that his solo turn passes a pleasing hour all too soon.