Summer Music began at Ayton Castle in 1995 and moved to Paxton House in 1998 to accommodate larger audiences.

Joint fund-raising with Paxton House enabled the purchase in 2002 of a new Steinway B Concert Grand Piano for the Picture Gallery, thus creating one of the finest venues for chamber music in Berwickshire and north-east England.

In 2005 the festival celebrated its tenth anniversary with sixteen concerts across ten days, including its first outdoor concert and an exhibition in the Hayloft Gallery. Artists included the Bronte String Quartet, Haydn Trio Eisenstadt, violinists Susanne Stanzeleit and Jack Liebeck, violists Yuko Inoue and James Boyd, 'cellists Andrew Fuller and Ursula Smith, flautist Anthony Robb, clarinetist Anthony Pike, oboist Gareth Hulse, sopranos Catriona Holt and Christine Moore and pianist Gusztáv Fenyő.