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.

It did rather contradict my gloomy assessment of the effects of the recession on the arts scene last month, but I suspect it will prove to be a particularly productive blip rather than set the pace for the rest of the summer. (I neglected to mention in that survey that the Connect festival in Inverary wasn’t happening this year either, although they do hope to return next year).

It was great to see so much going on, and a great deal of it to a very high standard. I was very impressed with the two NTS Transform projects in Elgin and Thurso (the latter was particularly ambitious) that I had the opportunity to follow in some detail. To see the level of commitment and enthusiasm they got from often initially reluctant or suspicious school groups, and the equally enthusiastic participation of community groups in Thurso, was extremely heartening.

For a variety of reasons we were unable to plant anyone in the NTS Orkney project, Mixter Maxter, and just to round out our neglect of it, neither of our reviewers at the St Magnus Festival was able to see it. It was well-received by the critics (see, for example, Joyce McMillan in The Scotsman), and you can also check out some of the participants’ own blogs and videos at this site.

July is shaping up to be a little less frenetic, although that won’t be the case in Stornoway, where the Hebridean Celtic Festival will unleash its usual good times. The rather more sedate Mendelssohn On Mull festival also occupies its usual slot early in the month.

There is lots of grassroots activity as well. The Feisean programme is well underway around the Highlands & Islands , as are the ceilidh trials, including the Caledonian Ceilidh Trail. The Inverness Highland Games in the Bught Park includes some arts events among the sport.

I can’t say that Homecoming Scotland has impinged a great deal on my own sphere of activity, aside from the Burns 250th Anniversary flurry (much of which would have happened anyway) early in the year and the odd themed commission here and there, but the main event of the programme, The Gathering , takes place in Edinburgh this month, and may raise the profile a bit.

In our lead interview this month, Helen Slater caught up with dancer and choreographer Christine Devaney as she and her collaborators worked on developing a new show during a two-week residence at Eden Court Theatre in June.

We have also instituted a new function on many of the reviews and features, where clicking on the writer’s name in the © credit at the end of the piece will take you to a short biography and picture of the said writer (one or two have chosen to remain anonymous, and some others have not yet got round to it, so if you click and nothing happens, that’s why).

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.

A creation of the Edinburgh-based Unique Events for Highland 2007, the inaugural festival was plagued by bad weather, but this year’s scheduled second running of the music-meets-outdoor activities event at Rothiemurchus has fallen victim to slow sales.

In announcing the cancellation, Peter Irvine of Unique Events admitted that less than 2,000 tickets had been sold when they decided not to go ahead in early May. The risk of running up a considerable loss was too great, and they opted to cancel the festival at that point. He would not entirely rule out a future attempt to revive it, although that seems unlikely.

On a more modest level, the excellent traditional music promotions at Farr Hall in Strathnairn also seem likely to call it a day after the visit of Session A9 on the band’s current Tune Up tour in early June. The growth of alternative venues in and around Inverness and the increasing costs of staging concerts have eroded the viability of the promotions in this much-loved venue, and this may well be the last concert they host.

Highland Council, meanwhile, have now followed the deletion of the Area Cultural Officer posts by doing the same thing with the Mhairi Mhor Gaelic Song Fellowship, a position held by Gaelic singer Fiona MacKenzie since its inception. The official line is that the funding will be redeployed to establish other Gaelic Arts residencies – we shall see what comes of that pledge.

On a brighter note, a number of significant events do go ahead this month, including Rock Ness, GoNorth, the St Magnus Festival in Orkney, and the Nairn Book and Arts Festival. Scottish Opera bring two new productions to Eden Court in Inverness, the National Theatre of Scotland’s Peer Gynt plays the same venue (and their Transform projects in New Elgin, Thurso and Orkney reach their culminations), and the Artist Rooms project (see our interview with Cathy Shankland and Dean Melville this month) reaches the Pier Gallery in Orkney. 

I have referred to the agonising gestation of Creative Scotland on several occasions in this column, and those following that sorry tale may be interested in podcasts of speeches by Michael Russell and Ewan Brown on the Scottish Government website. In the light of the problems with which I began this Editorial, funding – or the lack of it – is going to be a more crucial issue than ever in the coming months and years.

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 advent of warmer days also means the festival season starts to roll in, with Northern Roots getting underway ahead of the rest in early April. We had hoped to bring you coverage of the Knoydart festival marking the 10th anniversary of community ownership in the Rough Bounds, but at the last minute the organisers informed our reviewer – who was also commissioned to cover the event for a national newspaper – that they would not be extending the usual press courtesies (in other words, a ticket).

I thought that kind of insular and amateur attitude was a thing of the past in the Highlands & Islands arts scene, especially when it comes to major events, but clearly not. When our reviewer explained that we wanted to included some perspective on the community takeover itself as part of the coverage, the response was apparently along the lines of “that’s the Knoydart Foundation, nothing to do with us”, despite the fact that event was billed as Knoydart 10 Music Festival. Hmm. Local politics at work, perhaps?

Anyway, we hope they had a good festival even if they didn’t want to share it with the rest of us. We will continue our coverage of the summer festivals with the Shetland Folk Festival instead, where they are more used to welcoming the outside world.

The Creative Scotland saga rumbles on, but Mike Russell, the Minister for Culture, recently assured the Scottish Parliament that the money to fund the setting up of the new body would be met fully by Government rather than coming from frontline funding to artists, one major bone of contention in the opposition to the merger of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen into one new body.

Following a series of meetings with various arts and cultural organisation after taking up his post in February, Russell made the following statement to the Scottish Parliament in April:

“Creative Scotland will be much more than the sum of its parts and as such this is not just a transition, it is a transformation. This means taking the best from the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen and creating a unified body with skilled, confident leadership from the sector’s best.

“Much detailed work has taken place on the cost element of this transformation and as a clear signal of my commitment to our artists and creators I can confirm today that Government will meet the costs of establishing Creative Scotland.

“In doing so we will create a new force and set a national standard for a vibrant, forward-thinking development body that will empower and enrich our creative talent for generations to come.”

Let’s hope the reality matches these fine sentiments. Meanwhile, it may be a sign of the economic hard times beginning to bite that both the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra have announced only one visit each to Inverness in the 2009-10 season, rather than the former three.

In response to my enquiry, Eden Court confirmed that they are reducing the orchestral subscription season for 2009-10, and will make an announcement to that effect shortly, but that the arrangement they propose for next year will be for that year only (we will carry details in our news section when they become available). Let’s hope that is the case.

On a more positive note, Scottish Opera have just announced that they will be back in Inverness again next season (they will be here even sooner, with David McVicar’s splendid new production of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte and their first ever staging of Massenet’s Manon). November will bring Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love and Rossini’s The Italian Girl in Algiers, while next May will see both a revival of Stewart Laing’s production of Puccini’s La Boheme in the Empire Theatre and a smaller-scale production of Janacek’s great Katya Kabanova, which will also tour in September this year, including a number of venues in the Highlands and Islands, in the OneTouch Theatre.

The National Theatre of Scotland begin three residences in the Highlands & Islands this month. Their Transform projects in Elgin, Thurso and Orkney will bring together eminent theatre professionals with local communities and schools to create a new piece of theatre over a roughly six-week span. We will be reporting on progress from these projects throughout their runs.

Our interview this month is with a man who has done excellent work with limited resources on the island of Mull. Gordon Maclean, the artistic director of An Tobar, reflects on a decade in charge of the Tobermory arts centre.

Regular readers will have noticed over time that I have concentrated more on reviews than on features on Northings. That seems to me the best use of our resources, and will continue to be our main focus, but we will also bring you as much feature material as possible alongside the core review coverage and our news section.

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.

“Firstly, the design layout of the site has been widened to allow more content to be shown on today’s higher-resolution monitors. We’ve removed the old “tabbing” layout, and combined the Journal and Guide sections of the site into a more user-friendly one-stop guide to arts and culture in the Highlands and Islands. HI-Arts Services and our new and improved Artform sections still remain as distinct areas of the site, aimed at the cultural sector.

“Alongside the design changes, there is also plenty of new functionality. For instance, on the front page of the site we now have a handy “Widget” which features all the latest updates to NORTHINGS, including Reviews and Features. This widget can easily be embedded into any website or social networking page, and we encourage you to make use of this within your own sites.

“There are now thousands of pages of content on the HI-Arts website, and we have tried to showcase some of this rich resource in the new page layouts. For instance, if you are reading a Feature on the website, you will now see any articles related to that Feature in the right hand column of the site. We hope that this will make it easier to find the content that you’re interested in.

“As for searching the site, that’s much easier now too. Instead of having multiple searches for events, venues, directory entries and features spread out across the site, all HI-Arts content is now searchable from one quick and easy integrated search tool, to be found in the graphical banner on every page of the website. Events can now be searched by name, venue, town, artform, region or calendar.

“Whilst the most obvious changes to the site have been to the design and navigation, a lot of the changes have been “under the bonnet”. Much of the coding for the website has been totally re-written to reflect latest best practices – making the site more accessible to all users and more compatible across the widest range of modern Internet browsers.”

In addition to these changes, we are also taking the opportunity to use the familiar banner at the head of the page as an outlet for artwork. We plan to commission artists based in the Highlands & Islands to produce a suitable piece of work for the space, and hope to rotate them every few months. If you have any suggestions for artists whose work might fit (literally as well as figuratively), then e-mail us at audiences@hi-arts.co.uk  

We have been looking forward for some time to these changes, and are confident that they will provide a more stylish and user-friendly access to the rapidly expanding amount of material held not only on NORTHINGS, but across the increasingly interlinked HI-Arts sites.

We hope you will explore and get to know the new features. Doubtless we will be making additional tweaks and improvements in the coming months.

Lest we forget the content in all this focus on the look, our lead interview this month is with Laurie Piper, the Marketing Manager at Eden Court Theatre in Inverness. We live in a world in which many regard marketing as king, and Laurie has some interesting things to say about the importance of his department in the development and running of the Highland’s flagship theatre.

Once the new look and functionality has settled down, we will be introducing some new features in NORTHINGS over the coming months. Meanwhile, we will continue to bring you our customary round of regularly updated news, reviews and features.

Enjoy the new site.

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.

Judi took an upbeat stance, and emphasised the fact that the officers on the ground were “fantastic value for money in terms of helping community groups in particular to maximise their potential”.

If there was concern then, it now looks like a golden age of arts provision. The news that the Council are to delete – a charming piece of official-ese – the three remaining Cultural Officer posts as part of their wide-ranging series of cuts voted through this month presumably leaves those same communities (not to mention the three very good and hard-working individuals involved) to their own devices.

Highland Council will point to the H2007 Legacy Fund as a substitute, but it hardly makes up for having an experienced helper on the ground to both instigate and mentor activities. As I understand it, the Scottish Government funded Cultural Co-ordinators programme will end this summer as well, leaving a void at the heart of the community arts provision in the Highlands & Islands, and placing extra stress on organisations like Eden Court Outreach and localised or visiting initiatives to plug the gap as best they can.

For many of us more involved with the professional high-end of the arts, the change might not seem to impinge too much. The Cultural Officers work was often locally-based and below the radar, but it is likely to be missed, and sends out a bad signal on the Council’s intentions regarding cultural provision.

The arts could hardly hope to be excluded from the current blood-letting, but I cannot imagine that the savings made from removing these posts will make much difference to the Council’s very real financial plight, while eradicating a small but important element of their service.

As it happens, Bob Pegg, a deleted employee in an earlier purge, has written a fascinating account of his experiences in the arts in the Highlands since his first taste of the Wick festival over three decades ago.

When I first spoke with Bob about this piece, I had envisaged a modest article. Instead, we have the roots of a small book, and at almost 11,000 words, the longest piece we have published on Northings. It is available as a downloadable PDF to be read at leisure, and I recommend it to you – not least for his pertinent thoughts on the current situation.

Our main interview this month features one of a number of Fiona Mackenzies currently active on the Highlands & Islands arts scene. This Fiona is not our regular contributor to Northings, but one of the Mackenzie sisters from Lewis. Although family commitments have put the group Mackenzie on hold, she continues to pursue a solo career, and to work with her husband, singer and guitarist Brian Ó hEadhra. John Saich put the questions.

As usual, we will be adding more news, reviews and features (not to mention blogs and podcasts) as the month goes on.

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.

A flick through their brochure suggests that in terms of the arts in the Highlands & Islands, there is not very much happening that wouldn’t have happened anyway. As in Highland 2007, the organisers have happily taken anything that was already out there under their umbrella, and added even less in the way of unique events to the mix (unless they are keeping something up their sleeves).

It was always going to be an exercise aimed at generating tourism anyway, with the likely number of bed nights filled a more significant criteria to any funding application than artistic ambition or imagination.

However, the first wave of events did include a number of branded concerts at the first major music festival of the year, Celtic Connections in Glasgow, an awareness-raising opportunity that I felt Highland 2007 failed to capitalise on – they were represented at the event, but only at Showcase Scotland, essentially a trade show that isn’t open to the public.

If you detect a certain lack of enthusiasm for the whole shebang from this writer, then I can only concur with your sharp-eyed observation. It would be churlish to wish the whole thing anything other than success, but I can’t say I’m looking forward to it grinding its way through the year. If the visitors do come, though, I hope they take in plenty of the available arts events, and everything else Scotland has to offer.

The fiasco that is the creation of Creative Scotland also grinds on, and dissatisfaction over the proposed arrangements continues to mount, including a petition signed by some 400 artists asking MSPs not to support the formation of the new body as currently envisioned.

While the original aim of combining the Scottish Arts Council and Screen Scotland in one body had some logic to it, the subsequent attempts to do so have been marked by dissension, rejection in the Scottish Parliament, and a worrying amount of expense at a time when the arts are seriously strapped for cash. So far, so bad.

On a cheerier note, I’ll add my congratulations to Shetland-based writer Jen Hadfield, who took the T S Eliot Prize for Poetry in December. Peter Urpeth makes some very relevant points about the knee-jerk reaction of the London press to the award in his Blog on the subject.

Northings and the whole HI-Arts family of websites will be up for a serious makeover in the months ahead, which should result in a cleaner, easier to use and much more interconnected experience for all of you out there. We will flag up the changes as they occur, so watch this space.

We have been concentrating on our review coverage in January, notably at Celtic Connections, but our thanks also go to Nick Fearne for his report on the Moray-based Charioteer Theatre’s foray to Milan. We ease into February with an interview with harpist Catriona McKay, a mainstay of Shetland band Fiddlers’ Bid as well as an innovative solo artist, who will bring her Floë project to Mull in early March.

As usual, we will be adding more news, reviews and features (not to mention blogs and podcasts) as the month goes on.

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.

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The researchers agreed that the event had not succeeded in generating sufficient awareness outside of the Highlands and Islands (and many people still claim to have had little awareness of it even within the region, although that need not necessarily have been Highland 2007′s fault).

On the credit side, the report noted significant visitor impact (an estimated 520,000 additional day visits and 43,000 overnights), generating some £6.1 million extra expenditure. Casual or short term employment opportunities were created, and significant investment was made in both large and small capital projects, with a resulting strengthening of the cultural infrastructure, resources and access.

The report also suggested that “a total of 80% of Highland Council residents felt that the year’s events had an impact on the identity and prosperity of the Highlands and Islands, with more than a quarter believing this to be a major impact. Residents also claimed to have a greater level of familiarity with the region and its culture post-Highland 2007″ while “promoters reported many benefits related to the social capital of the Highlands and Islands, including increased involvement of young people in community life and a stronger sense of collective achievement and potential.”

As someone who is far from convinced of the effectiveness of such all-encompassing promotions, I have to conclude that it seems that the jury remains out on their real merits or otherwise. With the Year of Homecoming about to launch, however, they are clearly not going to disappear, and we await with interest the impact of that imminent extravaganza.

Meanwhile, those keen to pick over the bones can download a full copy of the 112-page report from the Highland 2007 website.  

December sees the return of the annual Scots Trad Music Awards, sponsored by MG Alba this year and taking place at the Old Fruitmarket in Glasgow (5-6 December) this year after a couple of sojourns to Fort William. Naturally, many artists from the Highlands & Islands are among the nominees, as is the subject of last month’s Venue Profile, Glenuig Hall, and the Wrigley Sister’s Centre of Music in Kirkwall. Full details of the nominees can be read at the Hands Up For Trad website.

It will be interesting to see what the impact will be of Eden Court’s new levy of a 5% fee for online and phone bookings, effective from 1 January 2009, and an 80p charge for any customers wishing to have tickets they have ordered posted to them, effective from the same date. If significant numbers of canny customers decide not to incur the latter charge, but to pick up their tickets at the show, congestion around the box office on busy nights could be chaotic.

Our main interview this month sets the stage for the final phase of Inverness Old Town Art, a multifaceted project scheduled to run until the end of 2009. Lead artist Matt Baker and project coordinator Susan Christie update us on the main projects in the months ahead, with the Ramada Hotel as the principal standard bearer (and there are a number of smaller initiatives underway in addition to those discussed in the interview).

Marcus Wilson, whose adventures in Arizona have been the subject of a colourful Blog in November, also caught up with re-discovered singer Vashti Bunyan as a new film on her life and work is about to be released.

As is our custom, NORTHINGS will operate as a “double issue” for December and January, which effectively means that this Editorial will take a break in January, but – with the exception of the two weeks or so around Christmas and New Year – we will continue to add new reviews and features during that period. Finally, we wish all our readers the compliments of the season, however you chose to mark it.

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.

November sees the Inverness Film Festival (lookout for further coverage on Northings this month) at Eden Court, and the beginning of Highland Council’s extended Inverness Winter Festival, which will culminate in a Hogmanay Party at the Northern Meeting Park on 31 December (they are having no truck with the rather spurious Auld New Year favoured by Highland 2007).

The festival will also include a St Andrews Day celebration with the much-in-demand Red Hot Chilli Pipers, and a series of projections onto buildings in the city by Arts in Motion, who will host their annual awards for short films from the Highlands, The Alberts, at their base in Evanton on 6 December (contact artsinmotion@btinternet.com  for details).

If the Inverness event is likely to be the biggest of the end of the year bashes, there will doubtless be no shortage of cèilidhs and celebrations around the Highlands & Islands in what has become an increasingly public rather than home-centred occasion. And when the hangovers have eased, Celtic Connections will kick in with its annual and ever-growing three-week extravaganza in Glasgow in January.

Throw in a busy ongoing programme at arts venues of many kinds all round the Highlands and Islands, and it is clear that we are all involved in what is very much a year-round activity these days.

Our main interview on Northings this month with visual artist Sue Jane Taylor is the longest we have published in that slot, and we have opted to make it available in the form of a downloadable PDF rather than an endlessly scrolling webpage. The artist’s conversation with Georgina Coburn on her recent work in copper mines in Tasmania raises many issues that are immediately relevant in a Highlands & Islands context, and broadens out in many fascinating directions.

Our Venue Profile features a legendary village hall that eluded us in our first series of profiles, Glenuig Hall in Moidart, while our From the Archive feature revisits Sue Wilson’s article on a notable figure from the Lochaber area, fiddler Aonghas Grant.

We have also changed the look and presentation of our weblogs, which can now be accessed under the Blogs button in the navigation bar. We will be looking to develop this feature in the coming months, along with our Podcasts. And, as ever, look out for more news, features and reviews in the course of November.

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.

Highland theatre has already suffered this year. The withdrawal of the Scottish Arts Council’s contribution to the Highlands and Islands Producers Fund has all but ensured that the fund – currently being maintained on a reduced basis for 2008-9 by HI~Arts through the funding contribution of HIE – is unlikely to continue beyond the current year.

The Producer’s Fund has supported both new and established companies in the area over the past nine years, and has made it possible for many companies to develop and mount new productions, and as a result have their work seen and assessed at a national level. Its likely loss is a blow.

In a more recent development, HIE has stopped the Touring Arts Fund as part of wider budgetary changes which has also impacted on a cultural support project for Inverness and Nairn. The Touring Arts Fund has helped local promoters by funding the specific costs of visiting companies working in the area for more than 20 years.

This benefited both incoming and area-based companies, and HI~Arts acknowledge that in the current climate they cannot rule out the possibility that there will be further losses of funding support when they come to negotiate their contract with HIE for 2009/10.

The loss of two key areas of long-term funding – at a time when Highlands and Islands companies have just scored notable successes at the Edinburgh Fringe – is a major concern, and the wider fear must be that it is a harbinger of things to come.

The Scottish Government, meanwhile, have confirmed their intention to proceed with setting up Creative Scotland, the new agency combining the functions of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen. The initial bill to set up the new organisation fell when it was presented to the Scottish Parliament in June.

The proposed timetable envisages the appointment of a Board of Directors and Chief Executive by April 2009, with full statutory powers in place by 2010. Meanwhile, the Arts Council have recently published a new edition of Care, Diligence and Skill, their manual for Arts Boards. See Robert Livingston’s thoughts on the new edition.

On a cheerier note, the Inverness Gaelic Choir will get to go the ball, or at least, to have a ball in distant Cape Breton. The Choir lost their previous air travel to the Celtic Colours festival with the collapse of Zoom, but managed to find a sponsor, Barchester Healthcare, to cover the cost of new flights.

They hope to repay the money through their fund-raising effort, and have been assisted by donations from Highland Council and the Inverness Common Good Fund. We wish them a grand time at the festival.

Closer to home, Loopallu marked the end of the outdoor festival season, but Eden Court has both its Book Festival this month (see our interview with outgoing director Jason Rose) and Film Festival in November, while the well-established Blazin’ in Beauly event actually kicks off with a concert at Bogbain (12 October) which will double as an album launch for the new MacGregor, Brechin and O’hEadhra CD.

With this year’s National Mod imminent in Falkirk (10-18 October), we have chosen Donnie Munro’s article on Gaelic Culture from October 2003 as our From the Archive feature this month. Our Venue Profile features Findhorn’s Universal Hall, which has a new artistic director since our original profile ran in September 2003.

As usual, look out for more features and reviews in the course of the coming month.

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.

Given that it has not been a memorable summer in weather terms, the outdoor events seem to have escaped the worst of it so far, although I write this in advance of Hydro Connect – let’s hope the watery associations are confined to the sponsor’s name.

No such problems for Blas, which takes place indoors, although some of those venues are actually mobile, since there will be events in a boat on Loch Ness, a train on the steam railway in Strathspey, and, for one lucky competition winner, a light aircraft. Eden Court Theatre also participates in Blas for the first time, including a visit from The Chieftains.

The festival awarded their first commission last year to fiddler Duncan Chisholm, and were rewarded with a memorable multimedia piece, KIN. This year’s commission has gone to Caithness pianist and composer James Ross. Rob Adams caught up with James for our lead interview this month.

Loopallu takes place in Ullapool on 19 and 20 September. This year’s line-up includes The Levellers, The Rascals, King Creosote, the Family Mahone, the Red Hot Chilli Pipers and The Vatersay Boys. This is the fourth year of the festival, and they even have their own fringe.

Speaking of which, the Highlands and Islands companies represented at the Edinburgh Fringe this year seem to have fared well. Matthew Zajac’s The Tailor of Inverness won a well-deserved Fringe First in the opening week, a distinction which not only recognised the merits of Matthew’s show, but also gave a welcome boost to attendances – it was packed out when I saw it on a wet Tuesday afternoon.

The show will be touring Scotland in February and March, and should on no account be missed if it comes your way. Accidental Death of an Accordionist was also well received, if more patchily attended, and continues on its tour in September.

If you missed our Podcast from the Fringe when it went on-line mid-month, featuring interviews with Matthew Zajac, Sorren MacLean and various members of the Accordionist cast, then be sure to catch up with it this month.

Victor Spinetti’s often scurrilous recollections of his life and times are sure to raise a few eyebrows when he opens his UK tour at Eden Court. Mark Fisher sets the scene for us in his feature. Our venue profile looks west this month, to the Sunart Centre in Strontian.

As usual, look out for more features and reviews in the course of the coming month.

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 SAC selection committee deemed only 13 proposals from over 400 applications to be worthy of further consideration, which is either setting the bar at a very challenging level indeed, or an indication of their low opinion of what is currently being put forward by the Scottish arts community. A large amount of funding remains uncommitted at this stage.

The Scottish Arts Council’s statement released with the announcement of the successful applicants said that while they had been encouraged by the level of imagination shown in the proposals, they felt that “many of the applicants did not demonstrate or articulate how their proposal would genuinely increase participation through ‘more, wider and better’ access to the arts.

The statement added that “the Scottish Arts Council proposes two further development strands for Inspire applications. The first strand will address those ideas that did not clearly articulate the barriers they sought to address, the communities they sought to reach, or how their approach was innovative in the way it proposed to increase participation to meet the standard required for an Inspire application. A second strand will be the development of a further application round.”

Announcements on both strands are expected by September, so further perspiration looms. At a time when confidence in the Arts Council has already taken a few dents, when arts funding is shrinking and the economic situation is very difficult, I suspect the announcement will have done little to inspire those working in the arts.

Two organisations in the Highlands & Islands, Eden Court Theatre and Shetland Arts, were among the successful applicants, and our congratulations go to them.

Hearty congratulations also go to Right Lines, Mull Theatre, Dogstar and plan B, all of whom will be represented with new or revived work in substantial runs at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. Love it or loathe it, the Fringe is a major showcase for work, and kudos and good wishes go to all of these companies for their efforts.

Right Lines are in the possibly unprecedented situation of having two shows running in Edinburgh, Accidental Death of an Accordionist (in a co-production with Mull Theatre – see Alasdair Satchel’s entertaining blog) and Whisky Kisses. Dogstar will premier Matthew Zajac’s The Tailor of Inverness at Assembly ahead of a tour in February, and plan B take Parallel / Parallels to Dancebase, also ahead of tours in September and February.

On the festival front, it is the turn of Tartan Heart at Belladrum to take centre stage in the first half of August, followed by the Hydro Connect festival right at the end of the month, both replete with loads of big names. The truncated Nairn Jazz Festival runs at the start of August with the new Community Hall as its main venture, while the region-wide Blas festival will be up and running in early September.

You may well have noticed that we have been tweaking the look of the pages here on NORTHINGS in recent months, and the developments across the website are ongoing. One recent innovation that may be of interest to readers are the introduction of the Art Forms pages, pulling together material from various branches of the HI-Arts websites under specific generic headings. Have a look by clicking on the Artforms tab under the NORTHINGS banner at the top of the page.

Our features this month look at two of the Fringe-bound companies, Right Lines and plan B, while Allan Hunter sets the scene for the inaugural Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams in Nairn, a commendably idealistic attempt to focus on the artistic rather than the commercial exigencies of the world of cinema.

Glen Urquhart Public Hall is the subject of this month’s Venue Profile, while our From the Archive feature is my interview with the late Martyn Bennett from 2003. The Martyn Bennett Trust are organising the Mull Grand Traverse  adventure challenge on the island on 23 August, with proceeds going to the MBT and the Marie Curie Trust.

As usual, look out for more features and reviews in the course of the coming month.

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.

It was the first time a major bill had been rejected since the Parliament was set up, and under the rules of parliamentary business, it cannot be re-presented to the house for six months. It is a major setback to plans that have received a mixed welcome, but in a statement Richard Holloway, Chairman of the Scottish Arts Council, remained positive on the longer-term prospects for the new organisation:

“While the failure of the Bill to progress was disappointing for the Joint Board, staff of Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen, as well as the sectors they support, the delay provides an opportunity for even greater engagement with the process and the chance to really think about how we can work together to create an organisation of which we can all be proud.

“At its meeting, the Joint Board made a clear and unified commitment to moving forward positively with the work required to create a new organisation that has clarity of purpose, relevant expertise and the resources required to fulfil its remit.”

The SNP administration, meanwhile, criticised Scottish Labour “reckless opposition” and failure to “realise the consequences of what they have done”. A fair old stooshie indeed, and one that we will be hearing a great deal more about in the coming months.

Closer to home, more details will be revealed at the beginning of this month on the Highland 2007 Legacy Fund, although as I write this Editorial those details were still awaited (keep your eyes on our news section for more information).

July means it is time once again for the annual mega-bash that is the Hebridean Celtic Festival in Stornoway. This year’s line-up includes The Saw Doctors, Shooglenifty, Seth Lakeman, Red Hot Chilli Pipers, Four Men and a Dog, Julie Fowlis, Karine Polwart, Hunger Mountain Boys, Mairi Smith, and Mary Ann Kennedy & Na Seòid, among many others.

NORTHINGS has the distinct look of a Northern Isles special this month. I would like to claim that this was entirely intentional and all down to brilliant editorial planning, but that would perhaps be stretching the truth a little.

It is more of a happy coming together of many diverse strands of arts activity in the Orkney and Shetland islands, taking in writer Ron McMillan’s stravaiging around Shetland and fascinating projects involving mailboats and wind turbines (read on for further elucidation).

Over on the west coast, An Tobar in Tobermory provides our venue profile, and Rob Adams looks at developments at the National School of Excellence in Traditional Music at Plockton High School, while in the east Visual Arts correspondent Georgina Coburn scrutines the work of Glenferness-based artist Daniel Kavanagh.

As ever, we will be posting more reviews and articles as the month unfolds, including our review coverage from the Heb Celt shindig.

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.