JUNE will mark the first anniversary of the launch of the Arts Journal, and while we scratch our heads and wonder where the time went, we have also been brainstorming away at coming up with some exciting new developments to mark the fact.

More on that will be revealed nearer the time, but one of the main additions to the Journal will be more material aimed at (although not exclusively limited to) the under-25 sector of our readership. To that end, we have added Andrea Muir to the editorial team as our Youth Editor, with a specific remit to generate material and develop new contributors for that sector.

We aim to look at ‘youth’ material on a broad basis. Music, clubbing and video games will certainly feature, but so too will a youth angle on (or involvement with) theatre, dance and visual arts. We will not be shunting this material off into a ghetto, but it will be given its own distinct identity on the site, and we hope it will help to attract many more users to these pages.

In the meantime, though, May brings plenty activity on the arts scene to be going on with. Capercaillie are on a back-to-their-roots tour of the Highlands and Islands, and we carry a feature on the band. The tour is part of the Scottish Arts Council’s Tune Up touring initiative, and it will also enable a formidable double bill featuring the great Irish band Altan and Gaelic supergroup Cliar to hit Highland venues later in the month. Cliar are the subject of our Band Profile this month, and we will also be looking at Altan mid-month.

Writer Alan Wilkins has set his first produced play, The Nest, in a bothy in the shadow of Sgurr Mor (the one by Loch Quoich, not the similarly named Munro in the Fannichs) and he talks about the genesis of the play – which is also reviewed by Mark Fisher – in an interview this month. Pitlochry Festival Theatre get their summer season underway, and will be our Featured Venue for May.

As always, there will be much more to come in the course of the month, so keep checking back.

Kenny Mathieson
Commissioning Editor