FOLLOWING the problems experienced earlier in the summer with a major music event foundering, it is good to see that the event which kick-started the current popularity of big outdoor music festivals in the Highlands & Islands, Tartan Heart at Belladrum, has sold out a couple of weeks ahead of the event.

Even in these difficult times, it is clear that people are still willing to dig into their pockets if you offer them attractive events, whether it be an international superstar like Rod Stewart pleasing his many fans at Caledonian Stadium last month, another successful Hebridean Celtic Festival under canvas in Stornoway, or small-scale local events around the region.

That will be some consolation to an increasingly under-pressure arts community, feeling the double whammy of institutional budget cuts and tightening of personal finances. Artists and performers have always found ways to weather such crises, and the current one will likely be no different.

As one administrator recently said to me, it is probably going to be a time to put the big, ambitious and expensive projects on the back burner and concentrate on doing the best possible with core activities – a case of making sure that they are still around when the gloom starts to lift and purse strings are loosened.

Dogstar Theatre are not quite the first Highland company to take two shows to the Fringe in one year, but their double offering of Mathew Zajac’s much-admired The Tailor of Inverness and their new production of Henry Adam’s Jacobite Country is the most ambitious such double offering so far, and spearheads an otherwise rather sparse H&I presence in Edinburgh this year.

Honourable exceptions include the usual dollops of folk music and the Black Isle-based plan B’s A Wee Home From Home, not a new show, but one that has been a very welcome revival for Franck McConnell and his co-conspirator, Michael Marra.

Unusually, there are a couple of tantalising Highlands & Islands connections in the Edinburgh Jazz Festival programme this year. Both Colin Steele’s new commission for the Edinburgh Jazz Festival Orchestra and Stu Brown and John Hollenbeck’s Naturally Inspired contribution have links with Islay, while Lewis-born trumpeter Siobhan Duncan has a showcase concert in the Breaking Ground strand of the festival.

As with his earlier Stramash project, Steele took himself off to Islay to work in seclusion on the music for the commission, while Glaswegian drummer Brown and his American collaborator spent a week checking out the bird life on the island in March for their project, based on bird song. Just to add a further layer of association, Brown then took himself off to Skye to work on the music.

It’s not an accident, of course, that Islay has become a focus for jazz musicians. The successful jazz festival on the island remains many people’s favourite event in the jazz calendar, and has generated many fascinating projects. This year’s event has a new sponsor, Lagavulin, and takes place as usual in September.

I had planned to feature my interview with Matthew Zajac as the lead article in this August ‘edition’ of Northings, but the timing of its Eden Court premiere made it sensible to jump the gun a little. However, we do plan to have an interview with fast-rising Carrbridge musician Rachel Sermanni within a day or two of the changeover.

Our reviewers will be out and about as usual, including at Belladrum and the National Theatre of Scotland’s headline production for the Edinburgh International Festival, which will premiere at Eden Court before moving down the A9, so keep checking back for the latest news and reviews on the Highlands & islands arts scene.

Kenny Mathieson
Commissioning Editor, Northings

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 Scotsman, The List, and other publications. He has contributed to numerous reference books, and has written books on jazz and Celtic music.