SO, HERE WE ARE AT LAST. The Arts Journal is now Northings, and the new look to the pages is complete. I have explained the changes – and the rationale behind the new name – in a separate introduction to Northings, and we look forward to bringing our readers an even better range of coverage of the arts in the Highlands & Islands in the coming months.

Visitor number have been gratifyingly high this year, and crept close to 10,000 individual visitors per day in October. Equally gratifyingly, the work of HI~Arts, notably the Screen Machine, the Journal, the ArtsPlay project and The Booth, brought the organisation a Commended award in the final judging of the Dynamic Place Awards last month.

Nonetheless, we won’t be resting on our laurels in the new year, although we will take advantage of the customary seasonal slow-down by making the current ‘issue’ a December-January one. In practice, that will mean no e-bulletin on 1 January, and no formal turn over of major features on that date, but we will be adding new articles and reviews throughout the two month period.

Our main interview this month is with fiddler Aidan O’Rourke, a mainstay of bands like Blazin’ Fiddles and The Unusual Suspects. The release of the new recording of his wonderful ‘Sirius’ project (created for Celtic Connections a couple of years ago) is eagerly awaited in the new year.

Aidan is one of the musicians nominated in the Scots Trad Music Awards this year, which take place in Edinburgh on 3 December. A number of other Highland musicians, bands, organisations and festivals are also in the running, and we will have a report from the big night next week.

Edinburgh-based freelance Sue Wilson (whose work will be familiar to readers of the Sunday Herald and The Scotsman, among others), was one of 400 journalists attending the Womex convention in Gateshead at the end of October. What she heard there sparked some fascinating thoughts on how the world music scene might impinge on Highland music. Her article launches our re-titled Speakout slot, which now replaces the ArtsRant as our opinion piece.

Our other main feature focuses on the work of the first recipient of the HI~Arts International Fellowship, professor Kenneth White. As part of his remit, Professor White delivered three lectures in Ullapool, Inverness and Kirkwall, the texts of which are available elsewhere on this site. We commissioned two reactions to the lectures from Gerogina Coburn (in Inverness) and John Aberdein (in Kirkwall), and all of these pieces can be accessed via the Kenneth White page in Current Features.

We hope you like the new look and simplified navigation around the site, and will continue to visit regularly for news, features and reviews.

Kenny Mathieson
Commissioning Editor
Northings Arts Journal

Kenny Mathieson lives and works in Boat of Garten, Strathspey. He studied American and English Literature at the University of East Anglia, graduating with a BA (First Class) in 1978, and a PhD in 1983. He has been a freelance writer on various arts-related subjects since 1982, and contributes to the Inverness Courier, The Herald, The Scotsman, The List, Times Educational Supplement Scotland, and other publications. He has contributed to numerous reference books, and has written books on jazz and Celtic music.