AS THE only editor of the journal since its inception ten years ago, I would say that, wouldn’t I?

HOWEVER, a succession of e-mails, Facebook comments and personal communications have confirmed that I am not alone, and many of them have been extremely gratifying, both to me personally and the Northings team, of which more below.

As Robert Livingston noted in his eloquent explanation of why we cannot continue in our present form, Northings has created a record of a decade of fascinating activity in the arts in this region and beyond. It will remain accessible online for at least a year as things stand, and I hope that in that period some way of reviving the site may be found.

James Hawkins - The Rough Bounds of Knoydart

Our demise comes at a point when it is difficult to escape the feeling that many of the gains put in place in that time are eroding at an alarming rate. Northings follows The Booth, venues are struggling to maintain audience numbers, and money gets harder and harder to find – Moray Council have just axed their arts budget completely (and there may be more such blows to come).

And yet, I don’t see it as a completely gloomy outlook. Yes, times are hard, some companies and organisations will go the wall, the infrastructure may be weakened. The arts are no stranger to this kind of dilemma, though, and I remain confident that artists in our part of the world will continue to do what they do, creating good work whatever the duress, and will be there to step in when matters improve again, as they surely will.

I have had the privilege of editing Northings since we launched the site, but I had already decided to step down as editor at the end of this month. I feel ten years is long enough under a single editor, and if Northings is to be revived in some way at some point, it is time for new ideas and fresh energy.

Although I am continuing with a little writing, this will be my final substantial job, and I’m looking forward to pursuing some of my other interests – it won’t be slippers and pipe so much as walking boots, binoculars and bike (at least as long as the legs will allow)!

I would like to thank Robert Livingston for both his vision and unstinting support, and apologise for dropping him into several stushies for which he was in no way responsible, but took the flak. Likewise, my thanks to all at Hi-Arts, notably Marcus Wilson and Fiona Fisher (without whom, etc), and also, in no particular order, John Saich, Peter Urpeth, Karen Ray, Laura Martin, Elizabeth Sinclair, Avril Souter, Jelica Gavrilovic, Caroline MacLeod, Maggie Dunlop, Sian Jamieson, Pamela Conacher, Alistair Peebles, Andy Ross and the late Helen Slater (apologies if I have missed anyone). It has been a pleasure working with the team, and given that none of the core team was ever remotely full-time on Northings, I think we did a pretty good job.

My thanks also go to all of the contributors who have provided such rewarding material over the years. I believe the quality of much of the work we published was as high as anything currently happening in arts commentary in the UK, and it is difficult to imagine that events up here will get a similar level of attention in the media.

Although their support is now ending, we owe a debt of gratitude to Highlands & Islands Enterprise for ten years of funding, and to Creative Scotland and its predecessor, the Scottish Arts Council, for additional financial support.

Final thanks, though, has to go to all of you who have used the site, whether as regular visitors and commentors or occasional lookers-in to see what was going on. My best wishes go to everyone involved in the arts – we may have reached the end of this phase of our journey on Northings, but I am confident that the artistic spirit will continue to thrive in our beautiful region.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2013

THE Year of Natural Scotland 2013 event launched with the opening performances of Infinite Scotland at Eden Court in late January, and will run throughout the year, incorporating further art and cultural events as well as promoting our natural heritage.

FOURTEEN projects were announced last month, ranging from the Sound Out@Seven Lochs project in an urban wetland park outside Glasgow to the Natural Bennachie project exploring the culture and natural heritage of Aberdeenshire’s iconic mountain and the environment around Dunbar in the east that inspired the great conservationist John Muir.

Infinite Scotland - The Lairig Ghru (photo Laurie Campbell)

The projects are designed to involve community groups, individual artists and the wider community, whether Scotland-wide or in specific locations. They include Glasgow-based NVA’s new public artwork Island Drift, a collaboration between NVA, Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, which aims to transform the islands in the southern reaches of Loch Lomond using bespoke lighting technologies to create a compelling series of photographic works. NVA’s previous work includes projects in Glen Lyon, at the Old Man of Storr in Skye, and Kilmartin.

Writing and walking residencies are planned at several of Scotland’s Botanic Gardens, including Benmore and Cove Park in Argyll, while Journeys: Walking a Line is a year-long site-specific project created by North Light Arts in Dunbar, “inspiring creative journeys and collaborations exploring the nature and potential of the environment through the act of walking, marking and recording; the seeding and sharing of ideas, exhibition, performance and participation.”

Other projects in the Highlands & Islands include Sexy Peat, a collaboration between Highland Print Studios and Cape Farewell celebrating Lewis; Da Fishing Hands, a music-based project on Fair Isle led by Inge Thomson and Lisa Sinclair; and Sweeny’s Bothy, an artist-designed retreat for artists, writers and the public from The Bothy Project and Alec Finlay.

There will doubtless be much debate in the coming months over both the generalities – is this kind of event the most appropriate way to support arts and culture, for example, or is it cynical for a wind-farm obsessed Government to promote natural heritage? ­ – as well as the specific events of the Year of Natural Scotland, but the record from earlier extravaganzas suggests it will inevitably be a mixed bag of gains and losses. As ever, we hope for the best ….

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2013

THE draconian measures chosen by our near neighbours across the border are unlikely to be repeated in Scotland – or so we fervently hope. However, it is a reminder that all councils face making more large cuts in the short and medium term, and spending on arts and culture will inevitably bear some of the brunt.

IT IS an old and well-rehearsed debate. Hard-pressed bureaucrats argue that the arts are a luxury, and must give precedence to “essential” health and social services (although in reality, that is rarely the actual choice facing them).

Clare Blois's Bright Fields, Late Summer from the final show at Tore Gallery.

The counter-argument from the arts community (and anyone who cares about them) is precisely the opposite – art and culture is far from a luxury, but is indeed just as much an essential, and an inestimable contributor to our personal and communal development and well-being.

At a time like this, when unprecedented pressure is being brought to bear on public spending, it is more important than ever to keep pushing the latter argument. Despite the current difficulties with Creative Scotland (currently undertaking two major internal reviews of their operations, while just announcing the resignation of Andrew Dixon), the Scottish Government has so far shown itself more willing than Westminster to maintain good levels of public investment, rather than turn to private patronage. Long may that remain the case.

As the year end comes into focus, and the various pantos and seasonal shows start to gear up for their extended runs, things go a little quiet on the general performance front, but there are still quite a few attractive events to squeeze in between now and Christmas, featuring the likes of the Scottish Ensemble at Eden Court, Aidan Moffat and Bill Wells at Mareel, the Cromarty Film Festival, Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas at Findhorn, and the start of Moray-based Wildbird’s tour of Dreich House, as well as a number of exhibitions, including the final show at Tore Gallery.

Finally, seasons greetings to all of our contributors and readers from all at Northings.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2012

FOLLOWING a fair bit of recent criticism in the press, last month saw an escalation in opposition with the publication of an open letter signed by 100 artists (hundreds more have since added their support).

Ian Rankin was one of the 100 high-profile signatories to the letter

Addressed to Sir Sandy Crombie, the Chairman of Creative Scotland, the text read:

“We write to express our dismay at the ongoing crisis in Creative Scotland. A series of high-profile stories in various media are only one sign of a deepening malaise within the organisation, the fall-out from which confronts those of us who work in the arts in Scotland every day.

Routinely, we see ill-conceived decision-making; unclear language, lack of empathy and regard for Scottish culture. We observe an organisation with a confused and intrusive management style married to a corporate ethos that seems designed to set artist against artist and company against company in the search for resources.

This letter is not about money. This letter is about management. The arts are one of Scotland’s proudest assets and most successful exports. We believe existing resources are best managed in an atmosphere of trust between those who make art and those who fund it. At present, this trust is low and receding daily.

In his address to Holyrood, Mr Dixon asked why more artists do not address their concerns to him directly: the answer is straightforward; they have. Letters of concern have been sent by representative groups from theatre, dance, the games industry, visual arts and literature. Individual voices have also been raised from many quarters both privately and in public. These concerns have gone unanswered or been met with defensiveness, outright denial, or been ascribed to problems with “communication”.

It is time for a fresh start. We ask that the board of Creative Scotland considers the following requests with the utmost urgency. We ask that you:

1. genuinely acknowledge the scale of the problem;

2. affirm the value of stable two to three year funding for small arts organisations;

3. end the use of business-speak and obfuscating jargon in official communication;

4. revisit CS policies with an eye to social and cultural as well as commercial values;

5. collaborate with artists to re-design over-complicated funding forms and processes;

6. ensure that funding decisions are taken by people with artform expertise;

7. establish an effective system of dealing with complaints as swiftly as possible.

We do not sign this letter lightly but we feel we are in an unprecedented situation. We call on you to act swiftly to make what changes are necessary to the organisation to repair trust and restore communication before any further damage is done to Scotland’s cultural landscape and international reputation.

Yours sincerely,

Sam Ainsley, Davey Anderson, Peter Arnott, Clare Barclay, Anne Bevan, Karla Black, Martin Boyce, Katrina Brown (Dr), Tam Dean Burn, Roddy Buchanan, John Byrne, Lorne Campbell, Richard Campbell, Jo Clifford, Nathan Coley, Deborah Crewe, Jeannie Davies, Peter Maxwell Davies (Sir), Chloe Dear, Finn den Hertog, Ella Hickson, Roanne Dods, Jude Doherty, Jaqueline Donachie, Joe Douglas, Rob Drummond, Oliver Emmanuel, Catrin Evans, Rob Evans, Graham Fagen, Andy Field, Pat Fisher, Luke Fowler, Fiona Fraser, Vivian French, Janice Galloway, Andrea Gibb, Suzy Glass, Douglas Gordon (Prof), Mickey Graham, Alasdair Gray, Stephen Greenhorn, David Greig, Kris Haddow, David Harding OBE, John Harris, Zinnie Harris, Ben Harrison, David Harrower, Lewis Hetherington, Corrina Hewat, Mark Hope, Philip Howard, Kieran Hurley, Chris Hunn, Callum Innes, Kathleen Jamie, David Paul Jones, James Kelman, AL Kennedy, Laura Cameron Lewis, Liz Lochhead, Ali Maclaurin, Linda Maclean, James Macmillan, Caoihin MacNeill, Aonghas MacNicol, Willy Maley (Prof), Andy Manley, Michael John McCarthy, Nicola McCartney, Francis McKee, Bernard McLaverty, Alan McKendrick, Linda Mclaughlin, Becky Minto, Alexander Moffat OBE, Gerry Mulgrew, Rona Munro, Andrew O’Hagan, Janice Parker, Don Paterson, Toby Paterson, Mary Paulson Ellis, Aonghas Phadraig Caimpbeul, Philip Pinsky, Karine Polwart, Lynda Radley, Ian Rankin, Robin Robertson, Fiona Robson, Muriel Romanes, Lesley Anne Rose, Lisa Sangster, David Shrigley, Ross Sinclair, Gerda Stevenson, Pete Stollery (Prof), Richard Wright”

The old Scottish Arts Council had more than its share of critics and controversies, but I cannot recall anything like the current levels of discontent with the workings of the national funding body. At a time when money for the arts is scarce from any source, this is a hugely damaging and potentially disastrous rift for the arts community.

Sir Sandy Crombie wrote the following letter in reply, and assured the signatories that their views will be taken seriously:

“I hope you will not mind if I address this letter to you as a means of reaching all those who put their names to the letter you distributed yesterday and kindly sent to me via a colleague. A copy of this letter will be sent to media contacts after a delay that will allow you to forward it to all of those you can reach by e-mail.

Before I turn to the points in your letter, let me put my response in the context of Creative Scotland’s development and its aspiration to create strong relationships with creative communities in Scotland.

Creative Scotland is two years old. It has a broader remit and in total distributes more funds than its predecessors. We make one third more awards with one third fewer staff. I think it is fair to say, and unsurprising, that in some cases our working methods are still developing. Are we perfect? No. Can we do better in a number of areas? Yes. But equally there is no shortage of evidence that we can and do perform well across a broad range of our activities.

Ironically, I saw your letter just after meeting a group representing a constituency of artists and organisations working across a range of sectors. The conversation with that group started after they wrote a letter in June expressing concerns similar to yours. For my part, I found that conversation positive and productive. I think it showed that Creative Scotland’s desire to create relationships based on trust and mutual respect is no less strong than that of those with whom we engage. Meeting one representative group like this is not enough, though. We are determined to engage with as many people as are willing to engage with us, through conversations in a range of places and formats in the coming months.

Let me turn to your letter. It is admirably concise, and, as one would expect from those named, eloquently expressed. Your points are well made. In choosing to be concise, you have of course sacrificed the provision of detail at a level that my board colleagues and I can investigate. Nevertheless, I assure you and all those who joined you in signing your letter that we do take seriously every issue, complaint or concern made to us, whether by individuals or groups. We will examine thoroughly every point raised with us. Two sub groups of our board members are currently working with staff to probe further into a range of topics that can influence both how we distribute funds and what artists and organisations experience when dealing with us.

Your letter coincided with the announcement of decisions on awards for the previously flexibly funded organisations that had applied into the first round of the new funding programme. Now that the decisions are public you will know that funds were generally awarded for two years, the only exception being the result of a request for a shorter award period from one applicant. These valuable organisations will be able to apply again in the future.

You have commented on the use of language and complications in our forms and processes. Every professional community – even the arts world – has its own jargon, but we have no desire to be anything other than clear and understood by all. I expect that the comments we have received directly from you and others and the planned conversations I have already described will help us be better informed of issues and able to test ways of expressing ourselves.

On processes, we share a desire to simplify. If applicants find things over-complicated then it is almost certainly the same for our people. We intend to simplify paperwork further and reduce processes to the minimum necessary to comply with audit requirements. We welcome your offer to join in helping to achieve this.

You have commented, as have others, on who is involved in funding decisions. As a first move, we are making more information available on how such decisions are taken. We believe that those taking decisions have both the knowledge and expertise to do so, but acknowledge that this can be questioned. One of the board sub-groups is considering this challenge. This same group will be looking at our handling of complaints.

In closing, I hope you will trust and accept that we have a strong desire to perform as an organisation for the people of Scotland. At current rates of expenditure one thousand million pounds will pass through Creative Scotland in the course of a twelve-year period to be used in support of arts and cultural activity. They who provide the money have a right to ask what will result from that investment. The return does not rest solely in economic or commercial benefits, important though those are. It can come through social, cultural and reputational gains and of course through artistic excellence. We at Creative Scotland are absolutely committed to playing our part in producing those gains, but realise we can achieve nothing without the active participation of artists and companies working across the whole spectrum of arts and cultural activity. We have every desire to engage with you, your co-signatories, either individually or collectively, and indeed any party who shares our aim of doing our very best for everyone.

I would therefore like to offer to meet yourself and as many of your co-signatories as you think useful to listen to your concerns in more detail and to create the foundations for a constructive dialogue that will help address the issues raised.”

It is a situation that needs urgent resolution, and it will be interesting to see where this debate takes us in the coming months, and whether any of it translates into meaningful action.

We were very saddened to hear of the sudden death of Dundonian singer and songwriter Michael Marra in late October, aged only 60. Michael had many personal and artistic connections with the Highlands & Islands, including his collaborations with Frank McConnell’s Black Isle-based plan B dance company, and a project with An Tobar on Mull which we covered in the very first year of Northings. A unique voice and a thoroughly good guy, he will be greatly missed.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2012

THE organisation also responded very promptly to my moan in last month’s editorial about lack of information coming our way (nice to know they are reading Northings). The venue opens in difficult times for the arts, and after a difficult gestation – let’s hope they can put the problems behind them and be a major success story.

Dougie McLean is one of the headline artists in Mareel's opening season

As it happens, Gwilym Gibbons of Shetland Arts was one of the people taking part in last month’s evidence session at the Scottish Parliament in which Andrew Dixon, the Chief Executive of Creative Scotland, responded to criticisms over the funding changes and policies announced this year, a debate that continues to rumble on (see, for example, Northings theatre critic Mark Fisher’s recent article in The List). A transcript of the session can be downloaded from the Scottish Parliament website (the Creative Scotland material starts at 1404).

I mentioned both events in last month’s editorial, but just a reminder that both the Luminate festival, exploring the theme of ageing and creativity, and the Moray Feelgood Festival, focusing on issues of mental health and well-being, will run throughout October.

Back here at Northings, users of the site may have noticed that we made a few changes to functionality last month. The major change is that we have replaced the former comments box at the bottom of each article with Facebook commenting.

Users can choose if they wish their comment to show only on the Northings site, or if they also want to post it to their own Facebook profile (which can then be shared and commented on by others, and thereby may take on a life of its own). Anyone who doesn’t have a Facebook account can choose to login with a range of other accounts in order to comment, e.g., AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail.
 Authors of articles on Northings will continue to get e-mail notifications if their article is commented on using the new Facebook commenting system, and we have added buttons to share articles on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

The old drop-down panel for Northings account information at the top of the site has been replaced with simpler “Contributor Log In” and “Register” buttons for logged-out users, and a link to WordPress admin and account details for logged-in users. Links to Northings’ main Twitter and Facebook accounts can now be found at the top right of the screen.

Finally, we have added drop-down menus under the Features tab in the menu bar which allow users to filter features for different art forms, and similarly to the News tab, which allows filtering by region.

We are also pleased to welcome the filing of the first Community Review, a very professional effort from Stephen Keeler in Ullapool. Community reviews don’t yet have an obvious presence on the front page of the site, but you can access them via a pull-down menu on the Reviews tab (and submit one here).

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2012

THE vague conviction that time is speeding up grows ever stronger as each year flashes past seemingly a notch or two faster than the one before, and units of time that once seemed interminable – days, weeks, months – become fleeting.

THE specific event that has driven me to these observations is the arrival in my inbox of a press release from Eden Court Theatre regarding their annual panto (I wasn’t there, but various characters from Mother Goose were apparently frolicking in the environs of the theatre last weekend – and they have the pictures to prove it).

Mother Goose and friends set the scene for this year's panto at Eden Court

Surely it can’t be anywhere close to that time again? We are still awaiting the arrival of summer (although for statistical purposes, the last week in August is officially the end of that elusive season), and here we are promoting the Christmas panto. I think I need to go and lie in a darkened room for a while – but the theatre’s panto has been one of their success stories, and will doubtless do well again this year.

A more in-depth look at the theme of ageing and creativity takes place in October with the Luminate festival. Anne Gallagher, the director of the festival on behalf of Creative Scotland, has been deeply impressed by her experiences as she travelled the country seeing the many diverse ways in which people have responded to age in their creative lives.

“People have shared their stories of how their creative lives have changed as they have aged, with many discovering or nurturing new talents, and others having their lives enriched by the opportunity to take part in a new activity. There is growing evidence of the importance of creative activities to our wellbeing as we age, and Luminate wants to shine a light on the many opportunities that are out there in Scotland.”

Luminate have re-launched their website with full details of the many events around the country running throughout October. At the same time, the Moray Feelgood Festival, a response to the Scottish Mental Health Arts & Film Festival 2012, will explore issues of mental health and well-being in a three-week event that opens on 1 October.

More immediately, the Blas Festival is about to hit stages across the Highlands this month, and it is good to be able to welcome an event that seemed in danger of succumbing to the current financial pressures besetting the arts and their funders. Long may it flourish.

The long awaited and often controversial Mareel venue in Shetland finally opened its doors last month with a couple of concerts from the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland, two years and many problems behind schedule, although no one bothered to let us know – the first I knew was when I heard it on the national news.

Given that Northings is not exactly a newcomer on the scene, it would have been nice to have at least a press release to run. From what I can gather these initial events are pretty much an easing in process, with a more formal grand opening to come later in the year. Now that it is up-and-running, we wish them well, and if they would like to let us know what they are doing, we’ll even give them a bit of free publicity.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2012

IT WAS business as usual at RockNess and the Hebridean Celtic Festival earlier in the summer, and this month’s Tartan Heart Festival at Belladrum announced that all tickets had gone in early July. Reports have been good from the slightly smaller events as well, including the Orkney Folk Festival and The Insider.

THERE are plausible reasons why this should be so, not least the stellar artists which these events have been able to offer. Presumably people are more likely to part with their money to see a number of star names all in one place, and enjoy the whole festival-going experience into the bargain (mud and all, although the events in the region have escaped lightly compared to elsewhere – fingers crossed for Belladrum).

The Wombats are among this year's headliners at Tartan Heart

Clearly there is still a huge appetite for these events, and they are presumably regarded as value for money when it comes to forking out for tickets. They have been a spectacular addition to the arts scene up here in the last decade, whether they have grown from more modest origins like the Heb Celt, or birthed as major events like RockNess.

It has been harder work at the year-round venues, many of which report reduced ticket sales and reduced availability of touring shows to fill their schedules, while many village venues have simply stepped back from promoting at all. It is hard to see an early turnaround, and life is likely to remain difficult for the foreseeable future.

One promoter recently lamented the disappearance of The Booth, the online ticket agency created as a HI-Arts project for the Highlands & Islands, and subsequently rolled out nationally. While some venues found it an expensive system to use, others valued not only the box office facilities it provided to their customer base, but also the promotional aid from the marketing support they provided.

The idea of providing a centralised online booking service for small venues scattered across a big geographical area, most of which had no box office beyond the local shop, was a sound one. The demise of The Booth was down to a number of factors, including a changing market, lack of appropriate technology to make use of it, and the rise of new providers picking up on The Booth’s example, some of which are now being used by venues up here, apparently with mixed success.

Pitlochry Festival Theatre have been looking into the possibility of reviving The Booth (under that name or otherwise), and it will be interesting to see if they feel it possible to restore a service aimed at this region.

The Highlands & Islands were conspicuously unrepresented when Creative Scotland announced their Creative Place Awards earlier this year. There is, however, a new opportunity for communities in the area to make amends and get hold of some project cash as part of next year’s scheme. Applications must be in by 28 September 2012 – full details can be found here.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2012

WHILE our commissioned reviews and articles will remain the backbone of our coverage of the Arts in the Highlands & Islands, we want to provide our users with a chance to express their own views on events around the region.

WE can only hope to cover a representative sample of what is going on through our regular commissioned reviews. If you have ever felt frustrated after seeing something locally that we have not covered, or feel your local area is under-represented on the site (and we readily admit that is the case in many places), then now is your chance to help us plug that gap.

Roddy Woomble is among the headline acts at this month's Heb Celt Festival in Stornoway

Registered members of the community can now submit their own reviews of events. I should say straight away that we cannot offer payment for Northings Community Reviews (although if we like your work, there may be an opportunity to add you to our regular review team).

It does, however, give you a chance to exercise your writing skills and knowledge in a form that will be published and available on our well-used site, and to add to the scope of coverage of the arts in our large and diverse area. As we all know, much of what goes can all too readily escape the attention of the “mainstream” media – Northings offers an internationally accessible platform.

There are some rules. You have to be a registered member, and you have to be logged in to Northings to submit your work. Please use the simple format laid out in the submission page (you can write directly into the ‘Your review’ box, but will probably find it easier to cut and paste from your usual word processing software).

Some common-sense conditions and restrictions on what you can say apply:

• Northings reserves the right not to publish any contribution without further explanation
• Northings reserves the right to amend your copy within the normal constraints of editorial practice
• Northings Community Reviews should not exceed 300 words, and should be submitted as soon as possible after the event, but no more than five days at the latest (and we reserve the right not to publish reviews which are submitted too long after the event)
• Reviews must not contain abusive personal attacks on any individuals or organisations, or use language which the Editor deems unacceptable
• If you have any connection with the venue, performer or organisation running the event, it needn’t preclude you from writing about it in the Community Reviews section, but you must clearly state your connection at the end of the review

Our aims in setting up this new facility is to involve our members more closely in the content on the site, and to provide a complementary service to our commissioned reviews that will allow members to pick up something that we have missed and bring it to wider notice, or to present an alternative perspective on an event.

We hope that many of you out there will want to make use of the chance, and we look forward to seeing what you have to say.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2012

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

PERHAPS we are all just a bit ground down by the relentless bad economic news of recent years, but I would have expected rather more of an outcry from the 49 companies moved to project funding (“investment based on proposals”) in last month’s announcement from Creative Scotland.

Creative Scotland presented the changes as part of their ongoing responsibility to review their funding models for the overall good of the cultural sector as a whole, and as a response to change to their own funding structure (you can read their announcement and the list of companies here).

RockNess in sunshine (Fergus Feggans)

FOR the companies and organisations involved, though, which included several based in the Highlands & Islands and North East, it introduces a level of uncertainty that may have profound consequences for their work, and in particular for their ability to plan ahead and commit both to programmes of domestic work and to international collaborations, which often require considerable forward planning and financial commitment.

At a time when things are already very tough – and in many cases pretty marginal – for those working in the arts, such uncertainty, which inevitably goes hand-in-hand with an increased necessity to devote time and resources to funding applications and administration rather than creative work, is precisely what they didn’t need.

It remains to be seen how all of this works out in individual cases. Some companies and organisations may notice little practical difference in eventual outcomes if their applications to the common funding pot – for which all will now compete, including all of those already on project funding – are successful, while others may struggle. It may even prove to be a judicious use of the available funding on Creative Scotland’s part, but currently it does not seem the way to build up a solid, thriving infrastructure for creative work in Scotland.

I hope to be proved wrong. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, festival season is now in full swing. June’s roster includes Northern Roots, RockNess, The Insider and the St Magnus Festival, while Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s summer season gets fully underway. Let’s hope the outdoor events get a share of the late-May weather we have been enjoying, but this is Scotland …

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson

THE prodigious growth of festivals of all sizes and kinds has been one of the more noteworthy phenomena of the past couple of decades, a fact brought home again by a perusal of the festival guide issued for the second year running by Creative Scotland and The List magazine.

It’s a project that would have fitted on a modest leaflet when the Edinburgh-based magazine first launched in the late 1980s, rather than the substantial (free) publication of 2012. Events like Tartan Heart and RockNess could hardly have been envisaged in the Highlands at that point, either, and they are only the attention-grabbing figureheads of a much larger groundswell of events scattered all across the region.

Tama Barry in Scottish Ballet's A Streetcar Named Desire (photo Andrew Ross)

Music, theatre, dance, books, story-telling, visual arts – you name it, and there is a festival celebrating it somewhere in Scotland. So what keeps the bandwagon rolling, even in these days of squeezed budgets and pinched purses? Is it the chance to see big names that wouldn’t normally make it to the region for one-off dates? Is it the buzz of getting together with lots of other folks – whether the huge celebratory crowds at a RockNess or your neighbours at more modest local gatherings – to lap up the atmosphere and the art?

Setting probably plays a part, too, especially in the outdoor events (hope springs eternal …) and in locations not normally given over to hosting shows. Most likely it’s a combination of all these things (and doubtless a few more besides) that drives the apparently insatiable growth of festival culture.

Given Northings own current austerity measures, our reviewers will be dipping into the festival calendar rather than aiming for comprehensive coverage, but whatever the event you are either involved in running or planning to attend, we hope you have an excellent outcome.

Both Scottish Ballet and Scottish Opera visit Inverness and Aberdeen in the next few weeks, the former with Ashley Page’s last major production before his not exactly amicable departure as Artistic Director later this year (much enjoyed by Jennie Macfie – see her review), and the latter with a revival of a popular production of Puccini’s Tosca.

Page has done a fine job of both resurrecting the fortunes and bringing about the transformation of Scottish Ballet into the modern company we now have. Filling his shoes will offer a considerable challenge for his successor, Christopher Hampson, when he takes over the reins later this year.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2012

Dave Smith’s cartoon (and surely that character on the right isn’t supposed to be …. ) evokes the doomsday scenario, but we all intend to ensure that it doesn’t come to that. Briefly, the situation is that after fully supporting the site through HI-Arts since its inception, HIE are now having to reduce the funding directly available to us for the coming year.

Unlike the majority of internet-based journals, we pay most of our writers for their work (artists writing about their own work are the exception), and both expect and receive a professional standard as a result. That means that Northings requires something in the region of £1500 each month to maintain our current levels of activity.

Michael Marra and Frank McConnell in A Wee Home From Home - just one of over 1,750 shows reviewed in Northings (Douglas Robertson)

And we have done quite a lot. Northings has carried over 1,750 reviews and over 750 features in that time, not to mention a regular feed of news, and well over 550,000 items have been downloaded, from PDFs and documents to podcasts and Hi-wireless episodes.

To achieve (or better) that level, we will be looking to progress fund-raising on several fronts, beginning with an appeal for donations from the key people in this whole enterprise, the users of Northings. We hope you will feel able to donate – no amount too small (or large) – and make a contribution to the continued development of the site (although your input is still very welcome here even if you don’t).

Our aim is to continue to serve as both a journal and a communal hub for the arts in our large and geographically diverse region, and that includes strengthening the Community elements of Northings. If you have not already done so, you can become part of that community simply by registering – free! – via the pull-down box at the top of the home page.

Once registered, we hope that you will want to contribute directly to the site, and make use of the facilities we offer to comment on articles and reviews, to network with other users (including via our Facebook page – please sign up there as well – and Twitter).

We will be aiming to add more functionality to enhance the Community experience in the coming months, which potentially include a platform for users to contribute their own reviews, and opportunities to benefit your own projects through crowdfunding.

Developing the on-line community at Northings has always been a key element in our mission, and we hope that you will join with us in making it an even more proactive one.

In addition to the donate button, you will notice some further changes on the front page. Blogs are now more readily accessed, and the old members button in the toolbar has now been subsumed within Community. If you are new to the site, you can read our mission statement in the newly updated introduction to Northings, accessed through the About button.

Northings will continue to carry commissioned features and reviews from our team of professional contributors. We now stand at what is simultaneously a major challenge and an exciting opportunity to expand our service on diverse fronts, and for you to get involved. We look forward to the continued development of the site, and the continued flourishing of the arts in the Highlands & Islands.

While on the subject of donations, we are delighted to report that our appeal for funds towards a memorial plaque in aid of Highlander’s Museum Redevelopment Project at Fort George in memory of the late Gordon Urquhart readily achieved its target.

Kenny Mathieson
Commissioning Editor

THE web-based journal has been what we hope is a valuable and valued part of the cultural sector in the Highland’s and Islands for well over eight years now, and has always been wholly supported financially by HIE through HI-Arts.

WE are grateful for that support. However, our current funding arrangement finishes at the end of this month, and will operate on a reduced basis for 2012-13. We must now seek other means of keeping the site going as well, and we are determined to make all possible efforts to secure additional funding in the months ahead – I will have much more to tell you on this subject next month.

Everyone at HI-Arts was very saddened to hear of the sudden death of Gordon Urquhart in Zambia last month. Gordon’s devotion to the history and heritage of the Highlands & Islands was always evident in the work he did with Ewan Macrae for HI-Arts on the Heritage North project, and in many other projects in which he was involved.

Ewan Macrae and Gordon Urquhart on Ben Nevis

We have launched an appeal to attempt to raise £500 towards a memorial plaque in aid of Highlander’s Museum Redevelopment Project at Fort George. Military history was one of Gordon’s many strong interests, and this seemed an appropriate way to mark our regard for him.

It is clear from the early responses to the appeal and comments that he was held in high regard by many. If you would like to donate to the appeal, you can do so via PayPal at this page. Any funds raised beyond the £500 target will be donated to the Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET) – Gordon’s wife Anne is a volunteer with that organisation.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2012

EVEN the normally reliable Eden Court could only muster two stage shows in the whole of January, and one of those was the end of the run of their annual panto.

At least in terms of things to go and see, the opening month of the Year of Creative Scotland has been a bit of a damp squib, although I have no doubt that artists and art workers across the region have been planning and working, and things are also starting to hot up on the events front as we move into February.

Dàimh are among the headliners for Celtic Connections' Big Top in Skye in March

The advent of the Year of Creative Scotland brought a couple of interesting responses to my January editorial. Those who feel concern that such events tend to focus on high-profile one-offs rather than genuinely nurturing the crucial infrastructure and ongoing support for arts activity in the region won’t have been much cheered by the initial announcement of funding for the First In A Lifetime awards.

There are some exciting projects to look forward to, but while many of them run through the year, they can’t really be seen as infrastructure-based – at best they will hook in people new to the arts who might want to continue their interest or involvement, and there is no arguing the merits of that.

They don’t, however, address the issues of building a better funding structure and facilities for the arts here, and with further losses likely in the months ahead, that remains a critical concern.

Despite Andrew Dixon’s assertion that “from the Highlands to the Borders, Scotland is a rich tapestry of thriving and vibrant creative communities” at the announcement of this year’s Creative Places awards, the Highlands & Islands actually missed out completely, with only Huntly getting one of the two special awards. This year at least, it paid to be a community south of the Highland line – we’ll have to raise our game for next year.

Lest we forget, as well as The Year of Creative Scotland, we are still in the Year of Scotland’s Islands as well, which runs until March, and is still flagging up events around our shores. Those events will include Celtic Connections’ first venture to the north with their Big Top event in Skye in March, with Rosanne Cash, Michael McGoldrick Band, Dàimh and Mànran among the headliners. Celtic Connections itself is still in full swing in Glasgow, and runs until 5 February.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2012

DOES it mean that we in Scotland need official permission to be creative, and cannot be so any other year? Does all the myriad creativity that has flowed from Scotland’s artists and crafts people up to this point somehow not count? Or is it actually our national arts funding body we are being asked to celebrate?

Artist Murray Robertson, Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop and Creative Scotland's Andrew Dixon examine the artists' map of creative Scotland at the Glasgow Print Studio

Okay, of course not. It’s easy to be cynical about these events, and sometimes with reason, but like the overlapping Year of Scotland’s Islands and the earlier Year of Highland Culture, good things will come out of it, work will be enabled that might not otherwise have happened, and the tourist spend will be totted up and trumpeted (and for the Highlands and Islands, tourist spend is a serious matter).

If we don’t lose sight of the fact that the promotion itself has little or nothing to do with creativity, but is simply a diverse series of means to financial ends (and with £6.5 million of National Lottery funding behind it, quite serious finance is going in), then there is no reason not to embrace it, especially if it happens to be pretty much the only game in town.

Creative Scotland, who are running the whole event, describe it as a “chance to showcase, celebrate and promote Scotland’s cultural and creative strengths”. There are opportunities to apply for investment and to take advantage of the promotional campaign on the Year of Creative Scotland 2012 website.

I was interested to read hill-walker and writer Cameron McNeish’s valedictory column in my local paper, the Strathspey & Badenoch Herald, last month. After 30 years, his column has fallen victim to financial reorganisation, and has been replaced by the the sponsored Active Outdoors section which began in the Inverness Courier and now runs across the various titles published by Scottish Provincial Press.

Apart from the fact that, as a keen hill-goer and cyclist myself, I enjoyed his idiosyncratic column, my interest lay in the fact that I had just received my own marching orders from the Inverness Courier, and for a similar reason. As a freelance Arts Correspondent for the paper, I had been contributing an ever-reducing amount to their Arts & Entertainments section since the late Jim Love appointed me to the role back in 2001.

However, it has now been decided that all such coverage will be handled by in-house staff. I have enjoyed my decade writing for the Courier, and bear no grudges, but it is a reminder that the financial squeeze on the arts doesn’t only hit practitioners.

Sadly, it is also another indication among many of an inexorably shrinking newspaper industry pummelled on all sides by plummeting circulation figures, disappearing advertising income and the onslaught of 24-hour television news and the internet. Having been part of that business for over a quarter-century, it saddens me to see what increasingly looks like its inevitable demise, certainly in its current form.

Northings is not immune to the current financial situation either, and I have taken the decision not to run reviews from Celtic Connections this year (an event which receives wide coverage in all media in any case), but to reserve the editorial budget for events within the region in the months ahead.

Few these days can pronounce confidently on the long (or even medium) term future, and change inevitably lies ahead, but we are cautiously optimistic that we will be around for a while yet. On that note, I would like to wish all of our colleagues in the arts, and in particular our contributors, website members and readers a very happy and prosperous 2012.

Oh, and don’t forget to be creative.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2012

While we are delighted to have been able to offer a platform for this project, credit for it goes squarely to Euan Martin and Dave Smith of Right Lines, and it is appropriate that it will be their own work which rounds out the five single shows currently available with a multi-part finale.

Ron Emslie and Garry Collins recording Morrison’s Van in the sunshine outside the recording studio at the Universal Hall, Findhorn, earlier this year

Morrison’s Van will run (no pun intended) over four consecutive days from 1 December, and we hope that listeners will take the chance to follow the series as it unfolds. If that is not possible, all of the Hi-wireless episodes will remain available on Northings, so there is plenty of time to catch up.

In a time of stretched resources in the arts sector (and with worse to come), Hi-wireless has offered a way of getting new work into the public arena for a modest investment, and has been both an imaginative and a highly enjoyable initiative. We hope that Right Lines will have the opportunity to extend the project in future.

Following a busy Autumn of touring shows and concerts, things go a little quieter as we approach the year end. As the review section of Northings will testify, it has been a busy year despite the financial gloom, and one that has produced more than its share of memorable performances and exhibitions, as well as the Year of Scotland’s Islands, and the North By North East touring fund..

Back in January, we reviewed Gill Russell’s Uamh exhibition in Edinburgh, and we return to her work this month with Gill’s own account of the genesis of her latest project, which opens in Strathmashie Forest near Laggan this month, and will run over the winter.

George Gunn has never been backward about making his opinions known, and the Thurso-based poet and playwright has had another blast at the current state of Highlands & Islands Theatre, with particular reference to what he sees as the lack of funding support for indigenous companies from organisations like Creative Scotland, UHI and HI-Arts.

His article in Scottish Review brought an equally robust response from Robert Livingston, the director of HI-Arts, and an aggrieved complaint from Charioteer Theatre in Moray, who felt that their artistic director, Laura Pasetti, had been unfairly targeted (although George did not name her, it was clear who he had in mind).

I don’t intend to go into the specifics of George’s accusations against Hi-Arts, but he is entirely wrong in saying that theatre companies have to “pay for the privilege” of a review in Northings (unless he counts providing a ticket for a reviewer as payment?).  No one has ever paid for a review in Northings, nor would such a thing be remotely countenanced. Both articles are on the  Scottish Review website, and you can follow the electronic trail of reports on the controversy on the BBC website.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2011

WHILE still basking in the glow of a superb concert at Eden Court featuring Bobby Wellins and the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, it is hard not to be a bit frustrated at what November has in store.

On the credit side, audiences in Inverness and environs can look forward to hearing guitarist Graeme Stephen’s new project involving live music for his quintet as accompaniment to F. W. Murnau’s classic silent film, Sunrise; the wonderful Brass Jaw; a splendid Rick Taylor Sextet; a solo concert from guitarist Nigel Clark; a duo featuring trumpeter Colin Steele and pianist Dave Milligan; and a visit from trombonist Dennis Rollins’ London-based Velocity Trio.

Brass Jaw (photo by Stuart Dreghorn)

The problem is that, with the sole exception of the last named, they are all taking place on the same weekend. Ruth Fisher’s inaugural Jazz Space event at Merkinch (11-12 November) accounts for Brass Jaw and Rick Taylor, Graeme Stephen is at Eden Court (12 November), Nigel Clark at Glenurquhart Hall in Drumnadrochit (12 November), and the Steele-Milligan duo at The Stables in Cromarty (13 November).

Talk about feast and famine…. Virtually nothing for months, and then a deluge. It is amazing how often clashes of this kind occur, and not only in jazz, but it is always bad news. The audience for this music is not huge in these parts at the best of times, and dividing it even further in this way is highly unfortunate, to say the least, especially when it is becoming clear that people are thinking hard about their spending.

The moral? More contemporary jazz, please, but let’s try and make sure everybody is keeping an eye on each other’s diaries …. And let’s hope they all get the audience they merit. Dennis Rollins, by the way, is at Eden Court Theatre on 25 November.

Some interesting theatre with a very direct Highlands & Islands connection can also be seen this month, with Vision Mechanics’ Dark Matter on tour in the early part of the month, and the National Theatre of Scotland’s dramatisation of Calum’s Road (warmly reviewed by Mark Fisher) also out and about in the region.

I liked Mull Theatre’s production of Hamish MacDonald’s Singing Far Into the Night rather better than Mark did, but his review sparked the most lively and interesting discussion we have yet had via the comments facility on the website (and possibly generated greater interest and attention than a more positive review might have done on its own).

My thanks to Hamish MacDonald for his measured contribution, to Mark for taking on the discussion, and to all who participated. This is exactly the kind of debate we hoped for when we introduced the facility, and much more like it would be very welcome.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2011

Although the festival had not taken place since 2009, it created a wealth of fond memories for the regulars who made the trek north every year to enjoy the high quality traditional and mainstream jazz in which the festival specialised.

It was no secret that Ken in part underwrote the event from the profits of his successful fruit and vegetable business, and it became increasingly difficult to sustain after his retirement, even with some funding support from the Scottish Arts Council.

Ken Ramage welcomes American singer Steve Tyrell to Nairn in 2006

It was one of those events that very much reflected the taste and unwavering commitment of its creator, aided by his partner, Roslin, and a loyal band of volunteers. Both Ken and the festival (as well his occasional out-of-festival Ramage Jazz promotions) will be missed.

With effect from today, 1 October, Highland Council’s community learning and leisure services will be delivered by a new arms-length company, High Life Highland, a move announced earlier this year and aimed at saving the Council around £1 million annually, while ameliorating some closures and service cuts.

Over 1,000 staff working in adult learning, archives, arts, leisure facilities, libraries, museums, outdoor education, sport and youth work will transfer from the employment of the Council to the new company, which is predicted to have a turnover of more than £20 million a year. Just under £8 million has been provided for the first six months of the company’s operations.

As well as many community-level initiatives, the new organisation wil be responsible for the running of Inverness Gallery and Museum and various other larger-scale venues and activities, although at this stage it is difficult to know precisely how it is all going to work, and what the likely effects will be.

Given current trends, the gut feeling has to be that diminishing investment and the arts receiving an ever smaller slice of a rapidly shrinking cake is the likely prognosis, not just for the year ahead but for the foreseeable future.

The long-held dream of a proper gallery space in Inverness now seems further away than ever, for example. Inverness BID are looking at creating a major new focus event for the city, but it is more of a festival-style celebration centered on Falcon Square they have in mind.

I suspect the real challenge – now and for some considerable time to come – will be to keep as much as possible of the activities and infrastructure that already exists (as Gerry Reynolds pointed out in a recent blog, “Scotland would rather promote as much new stuff as possible, than ensure the survival of what it already has”).

Put simply, re-organising and re-naming is all very well, but without a healthy influx of cash, nothing will happen. And the outlook is pretty bleak in that respect.

Mark Fisher’s review of Mull Theatre’s Singing Far Into The Night has clearly irked some of the people who have seen the show on its current tour, which is now around the half-way mark. Writer Hamish MacDonald explains the genesis of the show in our new interview, and there are still many opportunities to catch the play as it makes its way around the Highlands & Islands and decide for yourself.

The National Theatre of Scotland are also prominent this month. With Graham McLaren’s new production of Ena Lamont Stewart’s Men Should Weep visiting Inverness and later Aberdeen and Perth, and a smaller-scale touring double bill of Calum’s Road (adapted by David Harrower from Roger Hutchinson’s book about the building of the eponymous road on Raasay by local man Calum MacLeod) and Gerry Mulgrew’s Tall Tales for Small People.

MacLeod literally took matters into his own hands when the authorities refused to build a road on the island – perhaps that self-help ethic might be equally necessary for Highland & Island artists and organisations in weathering the current funding storm.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2011

Links

• High Life Highland
• National Theatre of Scotland
• Mull Theatre

THIS month’s co-production with Open Book of Para Handy – A Voyage Around The Stories of Neil Munro is a rather different venture, and an exciting one. In a period when funding is already very difficult in the arts, and likely to get much worse, it represents a very encouraging foray into large scale Highland theatre.

Okay, it is a long way from establishing Eden Court as a production house rather than predominantly a receiving one, but it is a big step in a good direction. The show is a new stage version adapted and directed by John Bett, produced by Eden Court and Open Book and funded by the Highland Culture Strategic Board as part of the Highland Arts Programme (through Creative Scotland’s Rural Innovation Fund).

John Bett checks out a Clyde puffer (photo Mandy Edwards)

Colin Marr, the director of Eden Court, welcomed the opportunity when the project was launched earlier this year at the theatre, saying that “the Para Handy stories are true Scottish gems and the opportunity to revive and ‘revitalise’ Neil Munro’s classic tales of The Vital Spark was just too good to pass up.”

It is also the culmination of a long-held ambition for John Bett, who first read the stories as an eight-year old, and has long wanted to do something with them. His approach to staging the show will reflect his own early immersion in the theatre-with-music approach pionereed by 7:84 and Wildcat, with a live band under the leadership of pianist and composer Robert Pettigrew joining the actors on stage.

Writing under the pen name of Hugh Foulis, Inveraray-born Neil Munro published the first of the Para Handy stories in the Glasgow Evening News in 1905, and continued writing them for much of his working life.

Their vivid evocation of life on the Clyde puffers before and after the First World War conjures up a long-departed era when the puffers formed a vital link between Glasgow and the west Highlands and Islands. Bett has sourced some amateur film footage from the era in the Scottish Film Archive, and will incorporate it in the show to help evoke the atmosphere of the period.

Munro’s stories were collected in three books, The Vital Spark (1906), In Highland Harbours (1911), and Hurricane Jack of the Vital Spark (1923), and have been adapted for television, including the much-loved series with the late Roddy McMillan as Para.

Invernessian Jimmy Chisholm will take on that role in the new production, which opens on 21 September at Eden Court before touring to His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, the Edinburgh Festival Theatre and the Theatre Royal, Glasgow. We wish all concerned good luck with the venture.

September also means the annual Blas festival, which this year features an intriguing commission which promises to provide a traditional music analogue to Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf (see Sue Wilson’s feature on the project).

In this year of Scotland’s Islands, the festival also offers two significant island-related projects, a new commission from Julie Fowlis inspired by her family connections with Heisgeir (also known as the Monach Isles), and a performance of Hallaig, a musical celebration of the poetry of Skye bard Sorley MacLean.

On the subject of music festivals, let’s not forget the very popular (and already sold out) Loopallu, which effectively closes the summer season of major outdoor festivals (what summer?, I hear you ask).

In keeping with the spirit of Blas, Right Lines’ Hi-wireless series features a Gaelic offering from Gavin Hutchinson this month, Eireaball na Dibhe. It means the hangover, and there may be a few of those around before the festivals close.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2011

Links

• Eden Court Theatre
• Open Book
• Neil Munro Society
• Blas 2011
• Loopallu

GIVEN that fact, Creative Scotland’s announcement of a new three-year programme of funding at Edinburgh’s Dancebase last Thursday was a welcome development.

The package is being presented as an ambitious three-year world-class celebration of Scottish culture and creativity, aimed at taking advantage of opportunities that will arise around the twin behemoths of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Inverness-based singer Coca Tenorio is on the bill at Belladrum

Scotland’s Cultural Plan “aims to promote Scottish culture and creativity on the world stage, increase international and domestic tourism and develop Scotland’s creative sector” (you can read the full press release here).

The multi-strand, £6.5 million scheme should open up some opportunities for artists and organisations in the Highlands and Islands (and the Culture Secretary, Fiona Hyslop, did officially launch the scheme at Ballet West at Taynuilt, which should be a good omen).

For one thing, there is a package of Creative Places Awards which will celebrate communities with a strong track record of creativity and cultural tourism. There has been plenty of that in these parts.

A second strand, First in a Lifetime, will offer opportunities for what Creative Scotland’s Andrew Dixon described as “mass participation in high quality ambitious artistic experiences” for people who have not had the chance (or only limited opportunity) to participate in the arts and culture.

There are Culture and Tourism Initiatives designed to support new cultural tourism activity, and to build collaboration between the culture, tourism and heritage sectors. The hope is that this will both encourage attendance at cultural events from local audiences and visitors, and improve the trading position of our cultural businesses.

Finally, an initiative going under the title One Step Further (Festivals & Events Growth Scheme) will allocate some £450,000 to “enhance the offering of existing cultural festivals and events during the Year of Creative Scotland 2012”, again with the aim of boosting visitor numbers.

Further opportunities are promised for later in the year in the lead up to The Year of Creative Scotland, which begins on 1 January 2012, and is the latest Focus Year (we are currently in the Year of Scotland’s Islands, as I am sure you are all aware), leading in turn to a second year of Homecoming in 2014.

If all of this is a further reminder that the principle of art for art’s sake has long been subservient to issues of social inclusion, tourist spend and all the rest of the range of targets which those wishing to avail themselves of some means of making their work must consider, it is a welcome opportunity for a bit of an injection of extra funding in a difficult time.

Further information on the fund and how to apply can be found on the Creative Scotland website, and guidelines for applications can be downloaded here. Good luck to anyone who decides to try their luck.

Back here on Northings, we unveil the second installment in Right Lines’ Hi-wireless series, Ian Hector Ross’s Harris Tweed and Golden Slippers. Reaction to Angus Dunn’s opening effort was very positive, and we look forward to hosting the unfolding series in the months to come.

Festival action focuses on Belladrum and the very successful Tartan Heart Festival, now well-established as a major event in the calendar.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2011

NORTHINGS is delighted to host HI-wireless, the brainchild of Euan Martin and Dave Smith, the co-directors of Right Lines. The pair cooked up the idea after deciding that an initial attempt to bring together a radio play, live theatre, local writers and the internet was just a shade too ambitious.

Instead, they came up with the ingenious idea of commissioning Highlands and Islands-based writers to create a ten-minute radio play, which would then be broadcast on the internet rather than conventional radio.

Funding from the Highland Council’s Literature Fund enabled them to commission five short plays, and additional funding from HI-Arts added on their own four-part series, Morrison’s Van.

Ron Emslie and Helen Mackay recording Morrison's Van at Acorn Studio in Findhorn

The first of the plays, Black Isle-based novelist Angus Dunn’s Shaman In The Kitchen, will be unveiled on Northings on Monday. Thereafter, four more plays will be added at the beginning of each month until December, when Morrison’s Van will be released over four successive days.

The other plays are Iain Hector Ross’s Harris Tweed and Golden Slippers in August, Gavin Humphreys’ Gaelic drama Eireaball Na Dibhe (The Hangover) in September, Phil Barda’s Piper of the Roof in October, and Jan Storie’s Rinse Aid in November.

The plays were recorded at Universal Hall in Findhorn (other than the Gaelic drama, which was done at Dave Smith’s home in Tain), and the actors involved are Ron Emslie, Helen Mackay, Garry Collins, Jackie Goode, Morna Young, Lynn Dalgetty, Artair Donald and Seonaid Johansen.

HI-wireless can be accessed from the front page of Northings, and will also be available on Right Lines own re-vamped website. As Euan Martin said, it opens up a fresh possibility for encouraging new writing at a time when funding for stage drama is very tight.

“We are very grateful to the Highland Council Literature Fund and to HI-Arts for supporting this project, and also to Northings for hosting it,” Euan said. “ If this is successful we hope to extend it in future. There are a number of directions that it could potentially go in. Most of the writers hadn’t written for radio before, including ourselves, and we discovered in the recording process that it really is an art in its own right.

“We both feel this is an exciting way forward – in these difficult economic times it isn’t easy for theatre companies to get money to put on shows, and this is a different way of getting new writing out there.”

Monday 4 July will also see the re-launch of the new, improved HI-Arts website, serving the Highlands & Islands arts community, and the launch of the latest HI-Arts podcast, in which Robert Livingston, the director of HI-Arts, is in discussion with Randy Klinger of Moray Arts Centre in the first of a new series of case studies on cultural and social enterprises.

Plenty there both to look at and listen to, and of course, we will continue to bring you our usual range of news, reviews and features as well.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2011

IF ANY area of presenting the arts has been a major growth point in the past decade or so, it is surely the proliferation of the festival. The creation of major events like the Hebridean Celtic Festival in Stornoway, Tartan Heart at Belladrum, Loopallu at Ullapool, The Insider at Aviemore, the Highland-wide Blas Festival and this month’s RockNess at Dores are all testament to an appetite for big events.

They have made a major impact on the Highlands & Islands art scene, and the local economy, and have focused attention on the area well beyond its confines. At the other end of the scale, small local festivals, usually organised and run on a voluntary basis, continue to serve the communities in which they are embedded, and make no less significant a contribution.

Soaking up the sun at RockNess last year (photo Fergus Feggans)

A good number of this year’s festivals are benefiting from funding from Scotland’s Islands 2011, a welcome addition in these cash strapped times. Others seem to defy all logic and run on what seems to be little more than inspiration and fresh air, driven by the enthusiasm and commitment of those on the ground who make it happen.

Even amongst this richly diverse patchwork, the St Magnus Festival in Orkney has claims to uniqueness, and embodies both ends of that spectrum – a festival of genuine international reputation, locally created and run, attracting many visitors to the island, but involving the local community as both audience and participants.

The event has a new artistic director this year, composer Alasdair Nicolson, a man who knows both the Highlands & Islands and the particular ethos of the St Magnus Festival very well. He steps into the chair vacated by Glenys Hughes, and inherits a remarkable event. On the evidence of his first programme, it seems in good hands.

All at Northings and HI-Arts were saddened to hear of the sudden death of our colleague, Helen Slater. Helen had suffered from a long-term debilitating illness, but continued to do voluntary work in dance and drama with Eden Court and other organisations. Her portrait had been commissioned as an addition to Eugenie Vronskaya’s wall of portraits in the foyer at Eden Court, and will be added soon.

Despite her health problems, Helen had a genuine empathy with people and love of the arts, and will be missed by all those who knew or worked with her.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2011

THE fund is jointly managed by the Highlands & Islands Theatre Network, the Promoters Arts Network, North East Arts Touring and Hi-Arts. The aim is to award production and touring grants to performing companies with particular relevance to the Highlands & Islands and North East, and to support those productions with marketing back-up.

A scene from Mull Theatre's Accidental Death of an Accordionist, an earlier collaboration with another Moray-based company, Right Lines

The tours are going under the North By North East banner, and the successful applicants in the first round of funding were Mull Theatre & Wildbird in a collaboration on The Mysterious Death of Netta Fornario, Open Book’s production of Macbeth, Puppet Lab’s Dark Matter, and Charioteer Theatre’s Get Me Out Of Here … I’m A Shakespearean Character.

The Mull/Wildbird and Charioteer productions are both scheduled to hit the road in late May, while Open Book will tour in July and Puppet Lab (now working under the name Vision Mechanics) in October. As part of the marketing support, and in accord with our remit to support the arts in the north, Northings will be carrying specific in-depth preview coverage of all of these productions.

The North By North East tour map for 2011

The second round of funding awards were announced in April, and have gone to Bright Night International, Cartoon Theatre, Dannsa and Reeling & Writhing. Details of the fund and of these shows can be found on the Northern Scottish Touring Fund website.

At a time when even large theatres like Eden Court are finding it more difficult to fill their schedules simply because less shows are touring, and a well-established company like Stellar Quines turned to trying to encourage car-sharing and local communal travel arrangements to Inverness and Banchory for The Age of Arousal as an alternative to a full tour of the smaller venues which they once visited regularly but now find prohibitively expensive to contemplate, the new initiative is to be welcomed, and we hope theatre goers around the region will support it when the productions come your way.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

The 70-year-old singer was not only one of the great voices in Gaelic music, but a thoroughly nice person, and she will be sorely missed. Ishbel always seemed a little bemused by the praise which came her way – I recall Karen Matheson, then in the first flush of international success propelled by Capercaillie’s early chart hit, blurting out to the audience in the Barony Hall in Glasgow that she was overawed to be sharing a stage with Ishbel. Ishbel just shook her head and laughed.

She was a native of the Point area in Lewis, and grew up with the Gaelic tradition of that locality. She was not only a wonderful performer in many different settings – although never better than in unaccompanied song – over the decades, but also a hard-working advocate and ambassador for both Gaelic language and song, and a fine teacher through the Fèisean movement. Acting appearances in the Gaelic soap Machair brought her to a wider audience.

Ishbel MacAskill

She is survived by her husband, Bill, and their children, and we offer our condolences to the family and her many friends. Doubtless many tributes will follow in the coming days as the Gaelic and wider Scottish music community absorbs the news, but her singing ­ both on record and in the memory – will remain as the most meaningful tribute of all.

As I say, other topics can wait for a more propitious moment, but I cannot allow this month’s Editorial to pass without saying a huge thank you to Marcus Wilson, who stands down as the Development Officer at HI-Arts to concentrate on his own web services business for the cultural sector and creative businesses.

For an early example of his work out side of this website, have a look at the new Taigh Chearsabhagh website – and Catherine Turnbull’s article on a North Uist success story in this year of the Scottish Islands.

The new Taigh Chearsabhagh website

Marcus has done many excellent things in his time at HI-Arts, but from a Northings point of view, he is the architect of this new site that we are all enjoying, and we owe him a huge thanks for his work in developing and administering it. Happily, he will still be devoting a bit of time to that work.

Finally, we welcome a new blogger to the Northings community this month, Highland Council’s Events Office, Gerry Reynolds, a man of strong opinions and one we are confident will provide fascinating reading in the coming months.

For a number of reasons, including the amount of administration involved, we have decided to limit the Blogs to invited participants, and have amended our FAQs accordingly. My apologies to those members who have contacted us on that matter, but bear in mind that it is still open to any member to set up a group on a topic of their choice (again, see our FAQs for details).

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

HOWEVER, we are only really starting to tap into the potential of what is on offer, and we need lots more of you to sign up and get involved in commenting, exchanging ideas, setting up or joining groups, and communicating with others with a passion for the arts across the Highlands & Islands, and well beyond.

Signing up and participating is completely free, and carries no obligations, but it does open doors to many aspects of the site denied to the casual visitor, and gives you the chance to get involved and make contacts.

We added a Frequently Asked Questions feature late last year, which you can access by clicking the even newer FAQS button under the Northings banner. It should answer any queries you have on the hows and whys of joining up. Oh, and if you are signing up, we’d really appreciate it if you added an image while you are about it (either yourself or a chosen avatar).

And if you have already signed up and didn’t add an image, it’s not too late to do so – just click on My Account and go to the “Change My Avatar” link. That way, we won’t get all those repetitive Northings images in the randomly selected Northings Members box on the front page.

Tin Shed at Haroldswick on Unst, Shetland, illuminated for the Mirrie Dancers project

As usual, we will be aiming to cover as wide a range of events as possible across the Highlands & Islands in the coming year, but you can expect there to be a notable focus on the latter half of that formula. Tele-watchers may have been struck recently by a sudden surge in programmes about the islands (The Hebridean Trail, Harris – Hebridean Heartland, An Island Parish), and that focus is likely to intensify on a number of fronts as the year advances.

It is, of course, the year of Scotland’s Islands, and funding from the project has already stimulated a number of new events, including a Literature festival on Orkney and an Eco Film festival in Uist. Applications are still open for the second round of funding, but closing date is 14 February – see the Scotland’s Islands website for details.

It’s easy to be cynical about these initiatives, but in a period when funding of any kind is going to be increasingly difficult to find, this does present an opportunity that is worth grabbing.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

© Kenny Mathieson, 2011

Social Enterprise’s particular mix of entrepreneurial spirit with benefiting the community may well have applications in many settings across the Highlands & Islands. Its proponents (including Naomi Johnson of First Port and Brian Weaver of HISEZ) frequently acknowledged that is not for everyone and would not apply in all situations, but with funding available to kick-start ventures, it may well be worth investigating if you are a community or artistic grouping.

It seemed less obviously applicable to the individual practitioner, and the conference did not have a great deal to say directly to them, although the main representatives of funding bodies present – notably Andrew Dixon of Creative Scotland and Colin McLean of the Heritage Lottery Fund – were reasonably upbeat on the prospects, and the Scottish Government’s subsequent budget proposals did not hit the Arts as badly as many feared.

The Old Maps and New Conference

The main cautionary note that emerged for me regarding the Social Enterprise model was the need for co-operation and collaboration, something that does not always sit well with the individualistic nature of artists or the territory-protecting instincts of community groups, and it will be interesting to see how the possibilities discussed at length over the two-day Conference manifest themselves on the ground.

I liked Andrew Dixon’s propensity for straight-talking, even if he admitted he was holding back some juicy morsels for his Sabhal Mòr Ostaig lecture at the end of November (the text of which we hope to bring you on Northings shortly), although delivering on good intentions will inevitably be a much stiffer task in the current climate.

By common consent, the stars of the show were Taigh Chearsabhagh’s Dana MacPhee and Gwilym Gibbons from Shetland Arts, both of whom demonstrated in their presentations just how much is possible away from the urban centres, given the right attitude, the right people, and a whole lot of vision and determination.

HI-Arts’ first experiment with PechaKucha was also a great success, with ten informative and entertaining quick-fire presentations from organisations as diverse as Arts Play Highland, UHI Creative Industries, Highland Print Studio, Timespan, the Gaelic Arts Project and Mull Theatre, as well as HISEZ and First Port.

For those unable to attend or to log in to the live webcast at the time, the proceedings can still be viewed via Northings.

© Kenny Mathieson, Editor, 2010

The new Northings.com website

Northings remains part of the HI-Arts family of websites, but we now have our own dedicated platform, leaving the parent site to concentrate on HI-Arts core services to the arts and culture sector in the Highlands & Islands.

The move re-emphasizes the fact that Northings (the on-line journal launched in 2003 has used that name since 2005) is – and has always been – editorially independent of Hi-Arts. As before, the opinions and views expressed in these pages are strictly those of the writers of the articles or reviews, and not HI-Arts or its staff.

Northings will continue to bring you commissioned features and reviews from our team of contributors, and audience-directed news items (sector news will be carried on the Hi-Arts site), but the switch to WordPress will greatly increase our opportunities to develop the on-line community which has always been a key part of our ambitions. We will be adding additional functionality to the site in the days and weeks following the launch.

Naturally, we very much hope that you will choose to embrace the new possibilities. Please register as a subscriber (it is, of course, free to so) by clicking on the Log In tab in the drop down box at the top of the home page, and going to Sign Up Now.

Wendy Sutherland's painting Surface Land (153x122cm) - our thanks go to the artist for the use of another of her landscape images as our backdrop

Subscribing will give you access not only to the comment boxes which will now be part of every article and review, but also to join in the communal sector of the site, which you can explore in the four tabs on the right hand side of our new banner. Our thanks to Wendy Sutherland for permission to use the artwork which frames the new site. Inevitably, we are still in the process of completing the design and building of the site, and will doubtless discover glitches along the way – please bear with us.

One result of the change is that we will no longer be observing the old print-based tradition of a monthly edition, but will operate on a rolling basis (largely the case in practice anyway), with new material added in a regular flow. One significant difference between Northings and many sites on the web is that, with the exception of artists writing about their own activities, our team of contributors are paid for their work. Many of them are professional writers (whether full-time, part-time or young and aspiring), and many have experience in other aspects of working in the arts.

All of them bring enthusiasm and expertise to their work. We aim to maintain a high standard in our articles and reviews, and in the past we have slipped very occasionally from those standards. As Editor I accept responsibility for that, and everyone involved with Northings will be trying to ensure that we achieve even higher standards in the future.

Reviewing is not an exact science – while a good reviewer will always try to be as objective as possible, inevitably a subjective element will be part of their judgement, and disagreements are inevitable. Our duty as reviewers and commentators is to be as fair, accurate and positive as we can, but always to be honest in our assessments – if the work in question falls short, then it does no one any favours to pretend otherwise.

All new reviews and articles will be posted only on this site from early November, and we aim to migrate all of the archived material on the HI-Arts site (in excess of 2,000 reviews and articles) to this site as soon as practicable. The new Northings will officially launch just before the important Old Maps and New Conference in Inverness on 12-13 November, and we hope that you will join with us in making it a success.

The Conference itself, inspired by Norman MacCaig’s poem of the same name, will feature keynote speeches from Seona Reid (Director of Glasgow School of Art), Willy Roe (Chair of HIE), Andrew Dixon (Chief Executive of Creative Scotland), and Neil Maclean (Director of the Social Enterprise Academy).

It will be the first time that speakers from the cultural, heritage and Social Enterprise sectors have had an opportunity to share a platform in the Highlands & Islands, and provides a valuable chance to examine and evaluate a much-changed landscape for cultural and heritage organisations as we enter a challenging period.

The Conference falls in the 100th anniversary of Norman MacCaig’s birth, and that anniversary will also be marked with exhibitions and events in the area of the region he loved and celebrated above all others, Assynt and Sutherland.

The countrywide Love Music Festival also reaches its final stages, with a full day of music at Eden Court Theatre featuring a range of World Music artists, and provides another reminder that while a sense of local identity remains crucial, the Highlands & Islands are also part of a much wider world of arts and culture which we can embrace with equal enthusiasm.

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

If Loopallu marked the end of the summer season of music festivals, there is a festival of a different kind currently ongoing throughout the region, culminating in a day of public events at Eden Court in November. As Stephen Deazley explained to Georgina Coburn in our lead article this month, the Love Music Festival has a strong educational component built into its structure, and will focus on World Music, an area not normally well covered in the Highlands & Islands.

Both Scottish Opera (with their reduced scale Carmen) and Scottish Ballet (with both a main stage triple bill at Eden Court featuring a new work by American choreographer Val Caniparoli and their smaller scale Up Close touring show) are out and about in the region in October, and not only in Inverness.

Orkney has a Storytelling Festival lined up for later in the month, and the Boyle Family are the latest big name contemporary artists to feature in the HICA programme, while the Artist Rooms exhibitions of work by Ed Ruscha (Inverness) and Ian Hamilton Finlay (Stornoway) both run through until November (and Andy Warhol’s work is at Perth Gallery until late October).

The Artist Rooms project is largely a result of the largesse of art dealer Anthony d’Offay, and it may be in the coming painful squeeze on public funding that a more old-fashioned reliance on such private patronage – routine in the USA – will play a bigger role in some areas of the arts than we are used to seeing in this country in recent times.

Northings, meanwhile, is gearing up for the biggest overhaul of the site we have undertaken so far, the results of which we hope to bring you in November, all going well. In the meantime, we will be providing normal service this month, so keep checking back for news and reviews.

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.

There were fears that the cut might mean that this year’s festival was the last, but Donna Macrae, the Festival manager, remains optimistic that they can weather the storm at least in the immediate future, as she explains in our interview this month.

Further cutting back may prove necessary, but as I have said before in this column, we are in what is likely to be a period of considerable retrenchment for the arts, and a focus on core activities and keeping afloat is likely to be the order of the day for the foreseeable future, and not only for Blas.

The continuation of the event is good news, though. Blas has been a very welcome addition to musical life in the Highlands and Islands, and has succeeded in putting Gaelic at the front of its activities in a very user-friendly way.

On the subject of welcome additions to musical life, the Highland Chamber Orchestra enjoyed a very successful 10th anniversary celebration last month, including their first performance at Eden Court Theatre. Our congratulations go to the players, conductor and composers involved, and to those working behind the scenes, and we wish them all well for the next ten years.

Creative Scotland, the new body taking on the functions of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen, have finally launched their new website, and I’ve already had people involved in the arts tell me they are less than impressed with what it has to offer. Creative Scotland are inviting users to tell them what they think about the new site (just go there, have a look, and submit your views via the links on the site).

Dogstar Theatre’s new production of Henry Adam’s Jacobite Country goes on tour around the region this month, but not exactly in a blaze of glory. Reactions to the play have been mixed, and often openly hostile.

I had my own major reservations about the show, but on the principle that there is no substitute for making up your own mind on these things, I would still urge you to go and see it if it comes you way in the course of the tour.

There are undoubtedly problems with the script, but the production is fast moving and energised, the four actresses deserve great praise for their performances, and the audience seemed to respond well on the night I saw it at Eden Court.

As well as Blas, September also means Loopallu, and the popular Ullapool festival returns with a line-up that includes The Magic Numbers, Idlewild, Aberfeldy and Turin Brakes among the headliners. Up in Shetland, the Wordplay and Screenplay events also return, while the Lagavulin Islay Jazz Festival offers a strong line-up in a unique setting.

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.

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.

They won’t be hitting the Fringe cold, however. The play will have a pre-Edinburgh run at Eden Court in late July, giving Inverness audiences a first chance to see new work from their local company. We will also have a first chance to see the National Theatre of Scotland’s major Edinburgh co-production with the International Festival, Caledonia, at Eden Court in August.

It is good to see these opportunities coming to the Inverness theatre. Right Lines also used the facilities there to prepare their recent touring production of Whisky Kisses, and plan B have regularly done the same for their dance shows.

Given that Eden Court is not in a position to function as a producing house, these are productive ways in which it can help in the direct creation of significant new work, and give audiences here – where we have mostly had to settle for being down the pecking order – a chance to get in first.

The theatre has also worked assiduously to build up its grassroots support for drama and dance through its various outreach projects and the Higher Drama and Dance courses which it offers, uniquely in a British theatre.

Actress Karen Gillan (of Dr Who fame, as if you didn’t know, and a former participant in Out of Eden herself) was on hand in late June to present LAMDA certificates to this year’s batch of drama students, but Colin Marr was unable to say with any certainty whether this very successful course will go ahead next year. It is one of the projects potentially under threat from the Highland Council’s budget cuts, and would represent a considerable loss if it falls under the axe.

However, with a bit of summer sunshine appearing at last after a long hard winter and fairly chilly spring, I’m not going to bang on again this month about the financial misery in store, inevitable though it is. The festival season is now well under way, with the Hebridean Celtic Festival in Stornoway heading this month’s list of events. You can check out the full roster of festival action by clicking on the Festival Guide tab in our menu bar.

We have two contrasting features to open July, in the shape of interviews with Balintore-born musician Olivia Ross and Shetland-born poet and artist John Cumming, the latter talking about his involvement in the Hansel Cooperative Press. As usual, we will also have reviewers out and about around (and occasionally furth of) the region.

Right, time to nip out and soak up a bit of that aforesaid nice weather while the going is good ….

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.

It did so amid some local doubts about the suitability of both the site at Dores and the event itself for the area, and considerable scepticism on the viability of such an ambitious project from outside of the Highlands.

The initial one-day event headed by Fatboy Slim sold out its 20,000 tickets, and it has gone on to expand to the present three days featuring major names in dance music (including Fatboy Slim again) bands like Friendly Fires, Leftfield and The Strokes.

The festival has had its controversies and its tragedies, but has added another dimension to the music scene in the Highlands & Islands, and the organisers deserve congratulations for that, especially in what are difficult times economically for all areas of the arts.

While the Outsider event at Aviemore has been one casualty of the shrinking economy, the more modestly scaled Insider festival , which stepped into the breach last year, is up and running again this year. A further reminder that the festival season is now in full swing.

Whatever we make of the post-election shenanigans that produced an unlikely coalition government (see Dave Smith’s ArtToon), it does feel as though we have emerged in a new political landscape, and one with an as yet uncertain outcome.

It is impossible to say how the arts will fare in the coming years. Scotland’s devolved government further complicates the picture, and the financial crisis facing administrations and local authorities offers little in the way of cause for optimism. We must all wait and see what the practical result of this unlikely bonding will be, while bracing ourselves for inevitable cuts to come.

Wait and see is also the watchword for the new Creative Scotland organisation , now beginning to make its presence felt after what seems an interminably long gestation period. It will have a crucial role to play in the coming difficult period, and we can only hope that it lives up to its name in tackling what is a formidable challenge.

Northings is about to tackle its own revamp of the website in the coming months, so watch out for what we think are exciting changes to come. For this month, though, we have new features on visual artists at opposite ends of the Highlands, HICA and Fergus Stewart, and our usual flow of reviews and news on all aspects of arts and culture in the Highlands & Islands.

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.

'Budget Cuts' by Dave Smith

It is another reminder that such large-scale promotions are a very risky business, and follows in the wake of the demise of both The Outsider and Hydro Connect last year. A more traditional community-related event like the Shetland Folk Festival, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, is perhaps a little more insulated from economic vagaries, but it is a major compliment to all concerned that it has thrived so well.

The Traditional Music and Song Association is another recent victim of the financial squeeze, although not yet to the point of demise. The organisation recently announced the necessity of making its paid staff redundant, but still hopes that a renewed bid for Scottish Arts Council funding will be successful.

Meanwhile, the Highland Council’s budget consultation remains open until the end of June 2010, and I would urge anyone involved in or simply interested in the well-being of arts and culture in the Highlands to make their views known.

Comments and responses can be made to the Council through the weblink above, or at Ward Forums in your local Ward. We have also added a comments box – delayed by a technical hitch – to Georgina Coburn’s Speakout article. While this does not feed directly into the Council’s consultation, we’d like to see some debate on the issue.

Many of the proposed cuts could be deeply damaging to the infrastructure and hard-won developments in arts activity in the region. Proposals include the closure of Inverness Museum and Gallery and the ending of funding to Eden Court’s Out of Eden outreach project.

I have said before in this column that the arts cannot expect to escape in budget cuts of the severity that the Council needs to make, but the arts community is certainly entitled – and indeed obliged – to fight its corner at this crucial point in the decision-making process. No use looking on in silence and complaining afterwards.

On a happier note, Right Lines have finally succeeded in the long haul to bring Whisky Kisses to the stage in the version they envisaged, and hit the road with the show this month. The aforementioned Shetland Folk Festival and Fèis Rois’s Adult Fèis in Ullapool see out April and usher in May, while both Scottish Opera and Scottish Ballet visit Eden Court.

The Ullapool Book Festival (7-9 May 2010) includes a session with Iain Banks, always good value on these occasions, and Pitlochry Festival Theatre have announced their summer repertory season, which opens on 14 May 2010.

Kenny Mathieson
Commissioning Editor, Northings

Alasdair McCrone, the artistic director of Mull Theatre, has a serious bit of history with this play. As Mark Fisher points out in his review, this is the sixth time that Alastair has twirled his tie and looked coy in the role of Stan Laurel (the first was way back in 1988), although he does confess that his modestly expanding waistline had him wondering if a switch of character might be in order.

Barrie Hunter takes the roll of Ollie in a play that is currently touring widely in Mull Theatre’s characteristic manner, and McGrath’s multi-faceted portrait of the great comedy pairing is well worth catching if it comes your way (and indeed, going a bit out of your way for).

Also on the road this month (and into May) is the An Tobar Commissions, a must-see double bill that brings together two of Gordon Maclean’s imaginative projects at the Tobermory arts centre, Aidan O’Rourke’s An Tobar and the Dave Milligan Trio’s Shops. As Rob Adams’s interview with the two bandleaders explains, they will also be concocting a new piece for all eight musicians especially for the tour.

Fiddlers Bid and Bellevue Rendezvous are also out and about in the Highlands & Islands, and Inverness plays host to a tasty range of treats, taking in the Treacherous Orchestra, the Scottish Ensemble, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Wee Stories and Scottish Dance Theatre, among others.

Plenty to enjoy there, even if the impending cuts in Highland Council funding continue to cast a shadow, Rumours and counter-rumours currently abound, but there is a growing feeling that the long term cultural well-being of the region is going to be sacrificed to short-term expediency, even where the resulting savings are fairly small, a situation which has the potential to do great and lasting damage.

The announcement of cuts at both a local and national level has led to the launch of several on-line petitions to allow people to make their feelings known, including one protesting the proposed cuts to music education in the region, another seeking support for the Cultural Coordinator (remember them?) in Schools programme, and another opposing the scrapping of the Applied Music course at Strathclyde University.

There has been a fair bit of recent activity on the Creative Scotland front. The appointment of Andrew Dixon as their new Chief Executive and speculation over plans to move to new premises are now followed by a Scottish Government commitment to fast-forward the launch of the new organisation – which will take on the functions currently filled by the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen – to this summer.

It remains to be seen how the new arrangements shape up, but at least it will bring an end to what now seems a rather long Transition period, and allow everyone involved to get on with the crucial business of supporting the arts in what will be a very difficult period ahead.

I ended last month with a word of congratulation for An Lanntair to mark their 25th anniversary. This month, local artist and writer Ian Stephen reflects on both the very real achievements and some things that are still to be achieved at the Stornoway venue.

Kenny Mathieson
Commissioning Editor, Northings

It is a shame that this tour is not reaching any west coast venues, since the Aberdeen-born, Edinburgh-based guitarist has written a new suite of music, Vantage Points, inspired by either places or journeys through Scotland, including Callanish, Ardnamurchan and Knoydart.

He was due to take delivery of the first copies of a new CD of the music just prior to the tour, featuring the line-up he will take on the road minus Shetland fiddle maestro Chris Stout, who had to miss the recording sessions through other commitments.

Let’s hope the latest hefty snowfall in this very snowy winter does not impede their progress, or lead to too many cancellations to other planned events around the country.

The cold winds blowing through the arts world are not only of the literal variety, though – they are getting much chillier in the area of arts funding.

I have written on several occasions about the impending ravages of funding cuts to come, but the recent advance announcements of proposed cuts in Highland Council’s very hard-pressed budget over the next three years suggests things may be even worse than envisaged. The fact that they have taken the unusual step of issuing such advance warnings is itself a measure of the seriousness of the situation.

They are seeking a saving of £60 million over the next three years, a position the Council’s Budget Leader, David Alston, described as “extreme”. It is also planned to consult with the public on where the cuts should fall, although the final decisions will be made by Councillors.

It seems particularly hard to take in the case of the Blas Festival. Having set up and established the event as a very successful going concern, the cuts the Council are now threatening are likely to mean that the 2010 event in September could well be the last.

Quite apart from the artistic and cultural issues, should the event disappear the financial loss of income generated by the festival around the Highlands will be considerable, and it is only the most high-profile of the likely casualties. Finding new sources of funding elsewhere is likely to be equally tough. All in all, not a happy picture.

The availability or otherwise of music tuition is the subject exercising arts worker and concerned parent Jelica Gavrilovic in her Speakout piece this month, one she intends to follow up with a second piece on “the age of technology, rock school and general music education and its lack of consistency in terms of curriculum, plus a call-out to all guitar people of all genres.”

In a pair of interviews, Barry Gordon looks at two contrasting aspects of the arts scene in his native Thurso, cinema and breakdancing. Mull Theatre, the National Theatre of Scotland and the Hebrides Ensemble are among those following Graeme Stephen’s example and taking to the road this month, and we will bring you reviews of all these, and much more.

And just to end on a cheerier note, congratulations to all concerned at An Lanntair over in Stornoway, where they celebrate the 25th anniversary of their founding this year.

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.

While the Inverness theatre complex is an obvious focal point for touring shows, and pretty much the only option for large scale productions, it is always good to see smaller scale work doing the rounds of the Highland and Island venues. Scottish Opera’s Essential Scottish Opera has been a very welcome part of that process for many years now, and returns this month, albeit with a new name.

ESO now goes under the rather more self-explanatory name of Opera Highlights, but the formula remains the same. Take four emerging singers, a pianist, an imaginative programme of operatic snippets from a diverse range of sources, hone it all into a thoroughly entertaining show, and pack them all off in a van to visit the parts that opera otherwise doesn’t reach.

This year’s show will visit Strathmiglo, Brechin and Midmar in the northeast before swinging west to Carrbridge, Findhorn, Torridon, Ardross, Strathy, Gairloch, Skye, Benbecula, Barra, Benderloch, Killin and Tarbert, with several more dates further south to follow. It is their biggest ever tour, and if it is anywhere near as good as last year’s ESO offering – one of the best I can remember – then it is not to be missed.

It is a shame, though, that the visit to Carrbridge should coincide with a concert in the Osprey Music Society’s season just along the road in Boat of Garten that same night. Mark Morpurgo made a similar point regarding events in Argyll a couple of months ago, and for the same reason – there is a considerable overlap in the local audience for these two events, and both are likely to suffer as a consequence.

The opera singers won’t be the only ones hitting the road this month, either. Glasgow-based Birds of Paradise start a tour with their new show, Davey Anderson’s Clutter Keeps Company, in Mull, with several more dates thereafter.

Back at Eden Court, theatrical delights on offer include Tall Stories adaptation of Room On The Broom, a popular story for the 3+ audience by Julia Donaldson (author of The Gruffalo); a return for NLP Theatre’s Singin’ I’m No A Billy He’s a Tim, seen here last year; and a touring production of Willy Russell’s phenomenally popular musical Blood Brothers. Oh, and Circus of Horrors and The Chippendales, but let’s not go there.

Mention, too, for the ever-imaginative Scottish Ensemble, who stretch even their elastic boundaries in a programme in which tenor Toby Spence will sing new arrangements of songs by Belgian singer Jacques Brel. On more familiar ground, local heroes Session A9 will hold court in the OneTouch, while the annual Inverness Fiddlers Rally is always a popular event.

Still in Inverness, another new arts venue has opened its doors. The Bike Shed in Merkinch is a more modest affair than that other recent re-opening across the river, Highland Print Studio, but it promises to fill a gap in the local community, and to provide an inexpensive facility for artists from all across the Highlands & Islands. Annie Marrs tells us all about it in this month’s interview.

Kenny Mathieson
Commissioning Editor, Northings

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.

As usual, this final Editorial of 2009 will also serve as the first of 2010 as Northings goes into hibernation for a couple of weeks over Christmas and New Year. The sharp-eyed among you will already have noted that there are changes afoot in the review sections.

Once we have ironed out the technicalities, the existing navigation buttons for Event Reviews and Film Reviews will be amalgamated as a single Reviews button, and all reviews are already going into the Event Reviews section. We are currently cooking up some more changes to the website, of which more in due course.

We have decided that we will no longer carry a regular film review after Christmas in order to free up more resources to cover specifically Highland & Island-oriented events (including films as appropriate). Many thanks go to Allan Hunter for his excellent reviews since taking over that role several years ago, and we look forward to his continuing input to Northings.

Our main interview this month features Mirrie Dancers in Shetland, a light-based art project which will culminate in a permanent installation in the Mareel venue when it opens in 2011. Lead artists Roxane Permar and Nayan Kulkarni filled me in on the project.

While December looks a little quieter than recent months on the events front, there will be many events clustered around our “down time” around Christmas and New Year, including pantos around the Highlands & Islands, and the final stages of the Inverness Winter Festival, so get out and enjoy, and accept the Compliments of the Season – and have a good new year in 2010 – from the Northings team.

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

The flag was there to promote their Blackbeard’s Haunted Ness Islands Halloween Show, but Highland Council felt obliged to remove it following that single complaint. It made our correspondent “Jolly Roger” feel rather less than jolly about the whole business of Creative Censorship – read his/her reaction here.

Meanwhile Homecoming Scotland 2009 moves into its final stages this month, culminating with another surge of events leading up to St Andrews Day . A flick through the Finale brochure reveals only one major event in the Highlands, a St Andrews Fèis Homecoming event at Eden Court (27 November 2009).

The final assessment of the merits or otherwise of the promotion will only emerge later, and will doubtless be the subject of ongoing debate. Whether it achieved it broader aims of generating visitor numbers I cannot say, but I can say I’m not sorry to see it end. I am not a fan of these year-long extravaganzas, and this one seemed even more amorphous than Highland 2007.

Doubtless a number of events would not have taken place without it, or would have done so in a different form, and artists and promoters have equally doubtless been happy to take advantage of the funding opportunities it has offered.

Once again, though, there seemed to be a great deal of slapping a Homecoming logo onto things that were already happening, and a lot of slightly strained attempts to manufacture a Homecoming slant to events that did not really fit the template. Or am I just being unduly grumpy?

Reports from The Gathering, Homecoming’s flagship event in Edinburgh this summer, suggested that conditions were less than ideal for the inaugural performance of The True North Orchestra, led by Jim Sutherland. There will be another chance to hear them when they perform in the opening concert of Celtic Connections 2010 in January.

Oh, and there is also another year-long celebration waiting in the wings, albeit not as lavish – 2010 is BBC Scotland’s Year of Song, and they plan to celebrate songs and song-writers (in all genres) across their radio, television and online programming.

More immediately, the Inverness Film Festival rolls out in November. Their website promised programme details as of 12 October 2009, but remained ominously unchanged. Enquires have revealed that all is well, the programme is in place, and was scheduled to be revealed on 29 October 2009.

In our lead interview this month, Barry Gordon caught up with a couple of music promoters trying hard to bring name bands to his native Caithness. A number of companies based in the Highlands & Islands are out and about this month, including the Black Isle-based Plan B . Frank McConnell revisits a 1988 collaboration with Michael Marra, director Gerry Mulgrew and designer Karen Tennent in A Wee Home From Home.

Moray-based Wildbird take an unusual look at the Bard in Playing A Round With Shakespeare, while Strathspey-based Dannsa team up with the Cape Breton band Beòlach on a tour.

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

John pointed in particular to the phrase “heavily soiled in broad Caithness dialect” as offensive, and deserving of “an apology to the people of Caithness”. I agree, as does the writer of the review (a Caithness native), who otherwise stands by his review.

The sense he meant to convey – and the wording was then changed to reflect it – was “rooted in the soil”, but the phrase as it stood bore a different interpretation, and should have been amended at the editorial stage.

I accept responsibility for allowing it to slip through, and am happy to offer an unreserved apology to anyone offended by its use. I also offered John Cairns the opportunity to expand on his assertion that “promotion of local dialect and culture is fundamental to our work as arts practitioners in the Highlands and Islands”, which he has done, although – as he admits – not quite to the brief I suggested.

An interesting exemplar of the point he makes about theatre being more than language is heading for Inverness this month as part of the Highland Homecoming event. Teatr Biuro Podrózy’s production of Macbeth – Who Is That Bloodied Man? more or less abandons the hallowed text in favour of imagery and action to tell their own visceral version of Shakespeare’s Scottish play.

It is one of the potential highlights of Highland Homecoming, which runs from 19-31 October at venues across the Highlands (although the event listings in their suitably fat programme brochure also includes events outside of that time frame). It is to be welcomed as a tangible presence for what has so far seemed a very nebulous event in these parts.

The big outdoor festivals have now pretty much run their course (although Teatr Biuro Podrózy will brave the weather in the car park at Eden Court), and the festival action moves indoors this month, with the Inverness Book Festival taking over various corners of Eden Court (see our interview with its new director, Brid McKibben), and the Royal National Mod returning to Oban.

Highland Print Studio made a welcome return to their elegantly refurbished premises in Bank Street this summer (they officially re-launched on 25 September), and Georgina Coburn caught up with director Alison McMenemy and Studio Manager John McNaught to hear all about it. HPS offer a variety of courses and facilities, and also welcome visitors simply curious to see what the business of print making is all about.

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

The latest segment of the Inverness Old Town Art project also hits the streets this month, and I do mean that literally. Re-Imagining The Centre takes up where the original event of that name left off in 2006, and aims to both celebrate the creation of new outdoor public arts spaces in the old town, and to ask where the city might go from here in the field of contemporary art.

That question will be addressed – along with many others – in the associated Invernessian Clanjamfrey event, which incorporates a free public lecture by Johannesburg-born artist Neville Gabie in Inverness Cathedral.

Later in the month Inverness will also be the venue for the completion of the relocation of Highland Print Studio to its former premises in Inverness, newly refurbished for the purpose. The Studio has been rather hidden away in its current location on the Longman estate, and this return to a more visible presence is a welcome one.

Up in Shetland, meanwhile, they have two festivals running simultaneously in early September, the Wordplay and Screenplay events at the Islesburgh Community Centre in Lerwick. Caithness has its own Arts Drama Festival in the opening week of the month, with a new play from Grey Coast Theatre as its centrepiece.

The play’s author and founder of the company, George Gunn, has announced that he is standing down as Artistic Director of Grey Coast. His commitment to the company and to the theatre arts in the Highlands & Islands has been a huge one, and we feel sure that he will continue to make his trademark no-punches-pulled contributions in whatever form he now chooses. We wish both George and the shortly to be reconstituted Grey Coast well.

Over in the Isle of Bute, Puppet Lab’s Big Man Walking project  – one of the few successful contenders for the Scottish Arts Council’s initial batch of Inspire funding earlier this year – will rise from his slumbers and make his public debut. Although based in Edinburgh, Puppet Lab’s Symon Macintyre is from Nairn, and has a strong track record in both puppet-based and more conventional theatre, including The Big Shop project in Nairn and Inverness.
These are only some of the highlights of an arts scene that remains both busy and vibrant, despite the difficult economic circumstances currently prevailing. There is little of great cheer emerging to suggest an up-turn is imminent, and reports that Highland Council have more substantial cuts in the offing – and are considering changes to the licensing system that may price festivals like Tartan Heart out of the market – do nothing to lift the gloom.

Happily, as the foregoing – and only partial – list of impending highlights suggests, there are still many reasons to be cheerful, including the imminent release of a new album by Uist piping maestro Fred Morrison, the subject of this month’s interview. And our critics will be out and about as usual in the course of the month ahead, so keep checking back for news and reviews.

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

Last year’s Fringe brought a triumph for Matthew Zajac with The Tailor of Inverness, and success for Right Lines and Mull Theatre with Accidental Death of an Accordionist, but Highlands & Islands representation is less apparent this year.

It is good to see a revival for St Kilda, one of the major projects from Highland 2007, in the opening weekend of the International Festival programme (as well as a recital from the Lewis Psalm Singers), but a trawl through the Fringe brochure yielded only the one-man show Djupid – The Deep and outings for youth groups from Lochaber, Gordonstoun and Glenalmond, plus Tabula Rasa Dance Company in the Made In Scotland season (see this month’s interview with Claire Pençak), and the customary sprinkling of traditional music performers.

A more modest profile this year, then, but we hope they all enjoy the experience (and apologies if I have missed anyone). Back in the Highlands & Islands, the aforesaid Mull Theatre are currently embarked on one of their trademark massive tours with a new show, Island Nights Entertainments (we plan to catch up with it later this month), while Tilda Swinton and Mark Cousins will hit the road on their Pilgrimage taking hand-picked films around the Highlands in the Screen Machine mobile cinema from 1-9 August. Follow their progress on the Day By Day diary at www.a-pilgrimage.org

The Tartan Heart festival gears up again at Belladrum (near Beauly) with another stellar line-up and lots of interesting side-shows. The Nairn International Jazz Festival has suffered from not getting expected funding this year, and a shift of dates – at the Edinburgh end – that brought it into a direct clash with the Edinburgh Jazz Festival rather than the usual overlap, but still manages to offer a strong programme of mainstream jazz in the Moray town.

Public art is often a thorny subject, and the Streetscape project in Inverness has been attracting some adverse publicity over its costs and benefits of late, but the organisers are preparing for the next phase of the project. Look for the Re-Imagining The City event in early September.

As well as the interview with Claire Pençak already mentioned, we have also invited visual artist Nigel Mullan to share his challenging but fascinating thoughts on the topic of visual arts and landscape. Nigel’s illustrated essay is available as a downloadable PDF file.

Oh, and just in case anyone is in doubt, my “Recession? What Recession?” headline last month was definitely tongue in cheek. These are difficult times for funding the arts, and not likely to improve anytime soon, so all the more credit goes to those who do succeed in persevering in the face of adversity.

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