THE YEAR of Scotland’s Islands has flung several performers, writers and artists our way in Orkney in the past months, and the Orkney Storytelling Festival has now reaped the benefit too.

The Scottish International Storytelling Festival in Edinburgh has an island odyssey theme this year. They linked up with our festival as a sort of outreach, and sent us the brilliant storytellers Stella Kassimati and Geoff Mead  from Crete.

Swedish storyteller Jerker Fahlström (photo Catherine Turnbull)

Adding Mediterranean island stories to the mix of Orcadian and Scandinavian tales expanded the breadth of seafaring myths and legends being told, and heightened our sense of shared links. We discovered the folklore of islands has many common themes with superheroes, gods, supernatural creatures, the oceans and magic, liberally sprinkled in the telling.

Stella Kassimati kicked off Island Nights on the first festival evening in Stromness with the epic Cretan myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. Her rich melodious voice captured and held our attention fast. Even though we knew the story, it was so well told as we followed her thread, just as Theseus did in the monster’s labyrinth. Geoff Mead ably took up part of the story, telling us how the sea god Poseidon contrived to create the Minotaur, half-man and half-bull, by causing Minos’ wife Pasiphae to fall in love with a white bull.

The Cretan epic was split into three acts, giving Orcadian storyteller Tom Muir the chance to tell us one of our ancient folktales, which were told around the peat fire, rather than in the sunny climes of Greece.

‘The Broonie of Copinsay’ is the story of the naked sea creature with seaweed for hair who was tired of gnawing on dead men’s bones on the bottom of the ocean that moved in with a poor farmer on the island. This legend was told with Tom’s characteristic wit and infectious love of the tradition.

Orkney’s islands were settled by the Norse who passed on their own tales, including ‘The Mermaid Bride’, who lured a man away to a kingdom at the bottom of the sea. At The Viking Tales event on 29 October, Tom Muir retold the Sanday version with plenty of local and modern asides. The mermaids are different there – they have a petticoat and bonny legs instead of a tail.

Swedish actor Jerker Fahlström dressed in Viking costume for his entertaining, lively and dramatic account of the Nordic gods. Maritha Neilsen slowed down the pace with a gentle but equally riveting story about a man in a forest who learned to stop complaining. We were diverted from Viking Tales when Fran Flett Holinrake recounted the story of how she discovered she had Orkney family links and another about how she met her husband’s guardian angel in the dead of night – or maybe dreamed it.

The gang of visiting and local storytellers travelled to events in Kirkwall, Hoy, Harray and St Margaret’s Hope. Themes included Selkies, Surf and Skerries, Creepy Tours, walks, a lecture about outer space and children’s workshops. Also taking part were Marita Lück and Lynn Barbour.

The festival, which was revived last year, was well attended and is a welcome addition to the calendar just as the clocks go back, offering more dark hours in the evenings for storytelling. One of the few perks of changing the hour.

© Catherine Turnbull, 2011

Links

• Orkney Storytelling Festival
• Storytelling Festival – An Island Odyssey
• Scotland’s Islands

I THINK we should let artists out more often.

They’re a solitary bunch, squirreling away in the studio or contemplating a cliff: but when they get together you can’t shut them up and the results can be very thought-provoking. The Pier was host to this animated – very animated  – discussion between three practitioners.

They’d come together to discuss the results of an imaginative project developed by Orkney Arts Society and funded by Scotland’s Islands (whatever will we do when that particular cash cow disappears into the void?) The quote – All things seem possible – comes from American environmentalist Edwin May Teale. The brief was to produce 40 drawings in the 31 days of May, in A5 landscape. The results were to be printed in a limited edition.

Drawing by Diana Leslie

The artists  – Diana Leslie, Colin Johnstone and Robin Bownass – knew each other’s work, but had no contact with each other during the month, beyond, as Johnstone says, ‘meeting Diana in the street and thinking, God, I havenae started thinking yet.’

They’re very different people, and therein lies the fascination. Leslie began the event by describing how alien it seemed  – and how wonderful – to be offered financial rewards for drawing. ‘Draw for a month and get paid? Hmm. That’s hard…’

But immediately, she said, the project began to articulate her practice. She’s not accustomed to A 5. ‘It takes more welly, somehow. I go through paper in a big way; with this I was persisting with small, almost forgotten causes, the rules of engagement were different.’

She chose to sketch from a stance on Brinkies Brae, the  hill above Stromness famous as the home  (as they say at Halloween) of the witch Bessie Millie, who sold winds to sailors. Her sketchbook is a visual record, from North to South, of the view, 360 degrees of it.

She incorporates writing, large generous cursive; she uses a very soft pencil, and works and works at detail. What you get is almost a peek at the learning curve. Some of the sketches just take off – the space and air and reflections balance. Some are too fussy. Some, clearly, will find themselves re-invented as paintings.

That’s the point, really – it’s a record of the business of success and failure. You’ll all have your own favourites from this book, but it’s most fun to ponder the ones you don’t find successful – and delightful that they’re all there, the good and the problematic ones. It’s honest work.

I love sketches – my favourite is the German artist Menzel, but any glimpse of an artist practising technique intrigues – Leonardo on muscles, Durer on rabbits, Breughel on children, all wadded up to escape the winter chill. I like domestic detail, rather than Constable’s careful colour notations – it’s the randomness of a moment that’s so human about sketching – you can almost hear the artist saying, I just have to get that down on paper, that dog scratching, that woman plucking a hen.

This project somehow doesn’t have that spontaneity, because none of the artists are engaged particularly by the human body, perhaps; or perhaps because, when you’re told your sketches will become a book, it’s a bit inhibiting.

Drawing by Robin Bownass

Robin Bownass’ approach is a traditional one. The oldest of the artists, he explained that drawing for him is central to the understanding of structure. In the past, artists drew from what they looked at, and learnt from it. Now in Art Colleges, he says, this isn’t happening. His drawings are based on the many crumbling W W 11 builings scattered around Orkney. ‘A record needs to be made’ he said.

He’s involved in a big Ship of Fools project, and brought a painting in to illustrate how the sketches inform larger work. He mentioned Durer’s Knight Death and the Devil, and Daumier’s Don Quihote, as influences – but his work is blunter than theirs. He uses brush and wash, not pencil. There’s a sense  again here that the A5 format is constraining – the sketches seem to burst out, full of vigour, as if they want to be allowed more space.

‘It’s not as simple as copying,’ he said. ‘People can be taught how to see. Preparatory studies are vital. I find these strange collapsing structures in such dramatic coastal settings exciting, and the sketches are preparatory and necessary. My sketchbook’s essential to me – and I enjoy it, I take delight in the medium, responding to the feel of the paint.’

Drawing by Colin Johnstone

Colin Johnstone’s approach is radically different. He hadn’t used a sketchbook since 1978, and ‘I’ll be chucking this one – it’s over to the viewer now.’ He described himself as ‘not a stand-and-look person; I’m more introspective, I look internally. This is full of personal things. I’m interested in veneers, in surfaces, layering. I used a 1970 Formica Architect’s Book as my inspiration, that and a facsimile of a 17 century artist’s notebook – just his business book, with blank pages, notes of sales, ink blots – I found it in a charity shop.’

This original approach yields an enigmatic and fascinating meditation. There’s a colour chart at the beginning so the viewer can imagine the formica  colours. (The actual book, with its samples, and 70s lettering and style, takes you right back to the time when imitation wood on sticky back plastic adorned every kitchen).

There’s a page which tells ‘the book, cover to cover’ – a summing up, perhaps, of the month as it unfolded,   – volcanic ash, a family tragedy, a riff on Icarus and windfarms, which he hates. The pages themselves are concrete poems, full of meaning for him – but capable of utterly different – and perfectly valid – interpretations by the viewer.

It’s a finished product, in a way that the other books are not; carefully meditated and organised. A couple of the images will become bigger pictures, he thinks; but  I don’t see why; I think the works fit perfectly into the sketchbook space and there’s a progression there which feels right.

‘I don’t draw academically’ he said – and that did it! We were treated to a really feisty discussion about the nature and purpose of drawing; what’s mechanical and dead and what’s real. Johnstone used to draw from observation but no longer does;. ‘I don’t think I’m missing anything!’ he said.

‘I do’ said Bownass.

From there to a discussion about ego – Leslie said, ‘Durer’s image of Jesus was himself! He was saying, I am God!  Ego’s a bad thing! If I make arrogant drawings, they’re bad!

‘Ego’s a drive,’ said Johnstone. Then – what’s conceptual art? What’s modern? What’s truth?

It was fascinating. They could have gone on all day. I loved it.  I had to go home and look at lots of sketchbooks, and wonder why Durer was so conceited about his hair.

As I say – we should let our artists out more. We should give them money to publish more sketchbooks as well.

© Morag MacInnes, 2011

Links

• Scotland’s Islands
• Orkney Arts Society
• Pier Arts Centre

THE premise of this tour and its ten events across Scottish Islands is that each features a locally based writer with two brought in from other islands.

So in Stromness we had local Rosie Alexander, Pauline Prior-Pitt of North Uist and Gordon Dargie of Shetland. All three featured poets have moved to their islands from elsewhere – Dargie from Lanarkshire, Prior-Pitt from Hull and Alexander from Cornwall. However a highly accentuated sense of place was a common theme for the evening.

Rosie Alexander

All had discovered their islands and expected to only stay for a short time, which had extended to years and decades.

For Gordon Dargie, two years in Shetland grew to 30 in a blink: “I liked the view,” he said.  Due to a mix up over the evening’s start time I only caught the last 90 seconds of Dargie’s performance: an engaging, in-your-face, direct speech sequence of consciousness delivered with no notes and plenty of eye contact as he roamed towards the audience.

There was power here in his sonnets, told almost conspiratorially using Scots and English and the first person, and I was bereaved to only catch one of his tales. I was told he contrasted his childhood memories of harsh Lanarkshire with the softness of Shetland.

A sense of place and a confused identity is a strong theme in Alexander’s work. She was born in hospital in Aberdeen when her mother was flown from Shetland as an emergency for a very premature birth. She is proud of her dramatic entry into the world, and her early days in an incubator being very sick which led us into her poem Baby about a creature of blood and bone.

Her parents moved to Cornwall where she grew up hearing stories of Shetland. Her quest to make sense of who she was took her to Orkney. Three weeks snowed in on her own last winter was an intense experience, which led to intense, personal writing, including Snow, “Adrift from all that is known”.

Orkney’s history has seeped in and taken her away from the personal and reflective for a few poems, such as Replica House Seven, inspired by the skeletons of two females found in a wall of a house at the Neolithic village of Skara Brae. Alexander is a gentle and reflective young poet, finding her voice amongst the hills and water of her adopted islands.

North Uist-based poet Pauline Prior Pitt is more earthy and earthbound, with a string of everyday concerns which she makes into the great epics of life and death. She warmed us up with a comedic insight into her writing routine with Between. “No screen, no hum, no bloody cursor yet”.

Hot Penning is an exercise in writing for 20 minutes without stopping, no matter what, about a certain phrase. Her phrase was She Had No Umbrella, which led to a fanciful and funny piece fantasizing about the woman with no umbrella having an affair in a hotel room with mascara running down her beautiful face and many other flights of fancy.

She moved on to relationships between men and women with the funny, clever and perceptive Crumbs. Do men leave crumbs so they can enter the Turner Prize, she wonders, but wipes them away anyway. Wry looks at ageing and amnesia followed, and several at death, the prospect of which is almost too much for her to cope with. “Oh sorry,” she says as if coming to. “That’s far too miserable. I’ll do a funny one before I stop.”

Whether happy or sad, Prior-Pitt’s poems moved me to tears – of the good sort.

The tour is timed to coincide with the publication of an anthology of Scottish Island poetry by Birlinn Polygon, edited by Kevin MacNeil. It was organised by the Scottish Island Writers’ Network, a Hi-Arts project, and supported by Scotland’s Islands.

© Catherine Turnbull, 2011

Links

• Scottish Island Writer’s Network
• Scotland’s Islands

WITHOUT implying any slight on previous Hebridean Celtic Festivals, this year’s 16th gathering – customarily a milestone birthday – really felt like an event that had come of age.

Having attracted some of the best UK and international acts on today’s increasingly diverse folk/roots scene, it treated them to a true weekend hooley in inimitably Hebridean style. Numbers were still being crunched at time of writing, but while last year’s landmark festivities, complete with the Runrig factor, set an exacting new record with a total attendance of over 17,000, all the signs were that 2011’s tally won’t be far off that, if at all.

Not only was the main arena in Lews Castle grounds – expanded this year with a new second stage, launched as part of the Scotland’s Islands initiative – consistently thronged, but all the other events that complete the programme, at both the An Lanntair venue in Stornoway’s town centre and local halls across Lewis and Harris, reported back as very busy indeed.

Rachel Sermanni band on stage (courtesy Heb Celt Fest)

The Heb Celt today has also spawned an impressively large and diverse array of fringe attractions. Okay, it’s not every year that a squadron from the Tall Ships fleet sails into Stornoway harbour to join the party – though the timing was hardly coincidental, complementing as it did the annual Sail Hebrides maritime festival, which in turn has complemented the Heb Celt now for 13 years.

Also on offer to while away visitors’ days, though, were the Lewis Highland Games, several art exhibitions, a posse of the original Lewis chessmen at Museum nan Eilean, an inter-island shinty cup, live public radio broadcasts, a beginners’ Gaelic course and a continental-style market, plus lively informal sessions in Stornoway pubs. These last continued well into the evenings, alongside additional gigs by several festival acts in the local nightclub, and DJ Dolphin Boy’s three-night residency at HS1 café-bar.

In the days immediately after the last boatload of revellers left the island, as festival director Caroline Mclennan was buzzing about dealing with the aftermath (the dismantling of the massive, 5000-capacity main marquee, the crunching of those numbers and settling of accounts), she could hardly take a step in Stornoway for another local shopkeeper, hotelier, taxi-driver, publican or restaurateur stopping her to exclaim at how busy they’d been.

A second stage at the castle site has long been an aspiration for Mclennan and her team, but the rightness of its timing and planning were neatly encapsulated when a veteran festival volunteer was heard to comment, “It feels as if we’ve always had it.” Exact topographical positioning – for minimal sound-spill – and staggered scheduling, with performances on the Scotland’s Islands stage relayed into the big tent during intervals there, via both the PA and twin big screens, meant that flitting between the two couldn’t have been easier, yet neither impinged on enjoyment of the other.

Kan's Aiden O'Rourke (courtesy Heb Celt Fest)

The new addition also opens up the festival’s programming to a whole slew of acts who might previously have been too big and/or raucous for the theatre-style intimacy of An Lanntair, but not quite enough so for the main stage. This in turn coincides nicely with the rapid expansion of that extensive middle league, within the broad church of the folk scene, to encompass less traditional, more indie-inclined acts, memorably represented here by Radcliffe & Maconie favourites Woodenbox With A Fistful of Fivers, soulful Leòdhasach singer-songwriter The Boy Who Trapped the Sun, and feistily turbocharged Glasgow four-piece Kitty the Lion.

To the evident pleasure of the crowd – which included a strikingly healthy contingent of under-18s – these were mixed and matched with seemingly more straight-ahead, tunes-based lineups like the award-winning Highland combo Rura, Shetland’s Fullsceilidh Spelemannslag, heavy-hitting Orkney duo Saltfishforty and Celtic rave combo Niteworks, originally from Skye. Besides the music’s multifarious individual delights, the great thing was how well they all dovetailed, and highlighted each other’s contrasting qualities.

The same harmonious balance prevailed in the magnificent, cathedral-esque edifice of the big blue tent, with adroit juxtapositions like that of Dàimh – featuring Lewis-born Gaelic singer Calum Alex MacMillan – who opened proceedings there and set the bar awesomely high with a superb set on Thursday, with quirkily-named Oxford folk-popsters Stornoway, who gamely faced the music in the shape of a majority local crowd, and won them over with their own affectingly-accented balladry.

Friday delivered the exhilarating triple whammy of the new but already, it seems, all-conquering Mànran, followed by Eddi Reader with full band, on truly exultant form, and the Peatbog Faeries to finish, parading new fiddler Peter Tickell, new drummer Stu Haikney and material from new album Dust in euphorically authoritative style.

And then the big Saturday night duly capped it all, firstly with another captivating, spellbinding performance from meteorically-rising (and deservedly so) Highland star Rachel Sermanni – look to your laurels, Laura Marling. Next up was Kan, the still newish project jointly fronted by two of today’s most formidable Celtic instrumental talents, flute and whistle genius Brian Finnegan and Lau fiddler Aidan O’Rourke, with guitarist Ian Stephen and drummer Jim Goodwin supplying forceful yet agile rhythm work. Parts of their set, virtuosic though it was, came across as just a little too cerebral for this climactic stage of the weekend’s game, but when they kicked up into top gear the resulting noise – from both band and crowd – was totally joyous.

K T Tunstall salutes the crowd (courtesy Heb Celt Festival)

Finally, KT Tunstall’s headline appearance was the moment we’d all been waiting for, and she did anything but disappoint, gi’in it laldy with boundless enthusiasm and conviction, mixing the hits and favourites from breakthrough debut Eye to the Telescope with newer self-style “nature techno” fare from last year’s third album, Tiger Suit. Tunstall evidently fell as much in love with the Heb Celt’s uniquely uproarious welcome as its audience did with her, promising to come back “any time you want”, and thus joining the legions for whom this exceptional festival has become an unmissable homecoming fixture.

© Sue Wilson, 2011

Links

• Hebridean Celtic Festival
• Sue Wilson

ALASDAIR Nicolson chooses Orkney’s almost new Italian restaurant for our interview and ushers me to a table by the window. Last time I was in this place, in February, the composer and founder in 1977 of the St Magnus Festival, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was sitting at this very table. It strikes me that both men have a fierce intensity in their gaze and I wonder if it’s the creative process of composing which puts the dazzle in their eyes.

Nicolson is relaxed, sunnily friendly and brings with him a frisson of London sophistication into a dreich Kirkwall day with his designer jeans and fancy shoes. He has promised to bring no great shake-up to the foundations of the festival but plenty of quirky twists, such as concerts on ferry crossings, a burlesque show, a showing of The Wicker Man cult film on midsummer’s night, The Tempest with film, acrobatics and live music and the more expected world premieres and choral and orchestral works.

Alasdair Nicolson (photo Paul Foster-Williams)

The festival theme is taken from Shakespeare’s The Tempest: “Be not afraid; the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet air that gives delight and hurt not.” This year is the Year of Scottish Islands, a funding opportunity, and Nicolson himself was brought up on the Isle of Skye and the Black Isle, though both are joined to the mainland, Skye through the bridge since Nicolson’s youth.

We are investigating island culture and with this in mind, The Tempest will be seen with with Mendelssohn’s repertoire when he visited the West coast islands of Scotland. The theme focuses the mind. “The isle is full of noises is what happens here at the festival, it’s a bit magical,” he says.

He was first involved in St Magnus festival in 1994 when he was musical director of a community production of The Beggar’s Opera and has returned many times for community and educational projects, has composed new pieces for concert, dance and theatre and directs the festival’s Composers’ Course. “And of course I know Max (Sir Peter Maxwell Davies) quite well over the years as a colleague. Now I’ve taken over; it’s mine, it’s happening and we are selling tickets. It’s extraordinary.”

What are his feelings about the St Magnus Festival and why is it so special it has kept him coming back to such a far-flung location?

“It’s in an interesting place, as many festivals are. Orkney is special because it has much more than a nice geographical location or cathedral town,” he says. “It has the St Magnus Cathedral, the Neolithic sites, geology and geography, a tourist heaven. That’s very useful when you are running something artistic as it makes an audience very interested in coming for the arts, music and to visit places and provides useful resources.

One of Orkney's alternative attractions, the Ring of Brodgar

“Orkney is known for its community and professional collaborations, it’s not unique at arts festivals, but unique in its consistency here. There are some festivals where the programme consists of what’s on the circuit; a guaranteed sell-out. Whereas here it has to be much more uniquely organised around the background of the place, the history of the cathedral.

“You also have to think that it is a very expensive place to get to. Other festivals might say ‘bring the orchestra in for the day’ which you can’t do here, which means you have to do quite interesting things in terms of programming and collaborative work. You want somebody to be earning their keep. You end up with the community in Orkney and the audience seeing the artists around, as they are not just here doing the gig and out again.

“In a lovely way, all artists who come here say they love people coming up to them about the concert the night before. This something very special to the professional artist, getting feedback and having the chance to stay with local people they can chat to.”

I am impressed when he reveals the staff comprises one full time manager, and two part timers, he and an administrator. Everything else is run by volunteers, apart from a stage manager brought in for a few days..

“That’s unique now,” he says. “A lot of festivals may have started that way, but now have big teams. The technical crew here are all volunteers, front of house, those running the festival on tour, hosts for accommodation. They are people like quantity surveyors who take their holiday to do this. We bring in one professional to stage manage the technical crew.

“It is ever evolving in terms of skills. One young lass who started here volunteering is now at the Central School for Speech and Drama doing stage management. The artists are impressed by the St Magnus Festival crew, who get hired to do work on other events in Orkney. Also, here nowhere is a fully kitted up venue as you might find at a festival like Cheltenham. The festival also goes on tour around Orkney which involves more logistics.”

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra are regulars at St Magnus

Collaborations are not just between visiting artists. There is a tradition of community involvement with local people singing in the chorus, working with national theatre companies on new productions or composing music. And school pupils get to play side by side with professional orchestras.

“Part of the Orkney phenomena is a very open-minded willingness to approach most forms of art which is quite unusual these days. People have more confidence here after being involved in the festival and other festivals here, which is great,” Nicolson says.

With funding in the arts ever decreasing and a double whammy when Orkney Islands Council cut its festival grant, there were fears that ticket prices would shoot up. But Nicolson says he has resisted the temptation of putting tickets up on a par with festivals of a similar calibre.

“Next year being the Year of Creative Scotland might shunt a bit more funding our way but it’s getting harder. It was very disappointing that OIC cut our grant because the St Magnus Festival may only be a few short days but there is work all year round which benefits Orkney. I’m working on a schools project, The Tempest has been going since January. I imagine that the economic impact of the festival in terms of accommodation, restaurants, travel and people buying things from local businesses is huge.

“When the city crashed, funding bodies lost their investments. We have sponsors of course. It will be tough and the temptation is to put the ticket prices for the festival up. I could probably buy a ticket for every event at this festival and probably still not get a seat at the Royal Opera House. We know people won’t travel here and pay big prices and we do want local people to come. If you were hard nosed in business you’d say, we’ve been cut, we need more money. But having a budget gives boundaries and can lead to more creativity and focus. It can be an interesting conundrum.”

Could this mean the festival might not continue to attract the sort of people who make it the calibre of festival it is? “No,” he says. “It is useful to have Max around and I have many contacts and friends. I can say to them come up, get paid something and have the experience. I tried this and a big name has agreed to come in two years time. It was her telling her agent ‘make it happen’ because she so wants to come here. My inbox is chocker with unsolicited emails, not only from the UK, from orchestras and theatre companies. The festival has got a huge reputation across the world. To make it work I’ll not be charging the Albert Hall rate to audiences.”

How has he approached the festival as a new artistic director? “I didn’t want to make people anxious or create something no one would recognise so have kept to the model of the last number of years. The basic idea is there is an orchestra here, chamber music, the Magfest fringe round and about. It is intact. Within the islands theme I tried to add some interesting things, for example a writers course with poet Don Paterson, a poem a pint and a tune in The Reel, a relaxing hour with a drink or a cup of tea.

“Those events sold out. Other than that there are the big commercial events. It’s a shame Mozart’s Requiem with the St Magnus Chorus and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra can’t be in the cathedral. The cathedral is a nightmare for a big concert, a very narrow nave, quite tricky. There are 160 people in the chorus. That’s extraordinary for an island of this size.

“The Tempest is a big show with a film being projected, live music, lovely concerts, lovely ensembles like Fretworks the viol concert, a fascinating world of old music being played on old instruments, and then we commission new stuff as well. I am really looking forward to the Windpower event in a windiest place on the planet.

Pure Brass will add their puff to the Windpower extravganza

“There will be a huge amount of windpower from Kirkwall Town Band, Orkney schools wind and brass, members of the SCO, Flutes en Route, Pipers Three and Pure Brass. Music is being composed by children here for short films made by the Orkney Movie Group, being played live by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. The kids are willing to work till half past eight at night after school. Music is part of life here.

“I wasn’t sure how a lecture by Professor Bryan Sykes from Oxford, Blood of the Isles, about the genetic makeup of islanders would go. But it has sold.

“Magfest has a really interesting set of shows across the board. There’s a wonderful Cinderella puppet show, The Terrible Infants which is like Roald Dahl meets Tim Burton, mesmerising and quite gothic and the Berlin Cabaret promises to be a window on the decadent times of 1930s Germany presented in a club atmosphere. It’s a burlesque show with some cross-dressing to music possibly thrown in

“I couldn’t resist a late night showing of the 1973 cult island horror film The Wicker Man on the longest day in Orkney on midsummer’s night, which comes with a pre-talk from Gary Carpenter the film’s composer about what really went on behind the scenes and how the score was put together.”

Nicolson is widely regarded as one of Scotland’s foremost composers. Surely now his creative output has had to be put on hold? “I’ve always been a freelancer and a composer and you are always at the mercy of other people. Now I am in the position that if I think someone deserves more exposure, I am in a position to make it happen. It’s interesting to be proactive and have an exchange of roles. This year has been quite tough to manage my other life composing. The St Magnus Festival is very demanding and inevitably however much something in name is part time, it never can be. But next week I will sit at my desk and write for a brass quintet and then work on an education project.

“I hope there is something for everyone in this programme. It’s fun working from the other side.”

Alasdair Nicolson was picked to succeed Glenys Hughes from an international field of 65 applicants. He has wide experience of working with musicians from a variety of musical genres, has worked extensively in the theatre and collaborates regularly with writers, dancers, filmmakers, playwrights and poets. For five years he was Composer in Association with the City of London Sinfonia, for whom he created programmes and projects, and he has a close association with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He has also worked as Artistic Consultant/Director with many organisations, both in their programming and their education and outreach work.

The St Magnus Festival runs from June 17-23 2011.

© Catherine Turnbull, 2011

Links

• St Magnus Festival
• Alasdair Nicolson

IT’S to be a celebration of all that’s special about our culture, people and places – and with the flagship events now decided, the Year of Scotland’s Islands is hotting up.

Scotland’s Islands is a programme of festivals, events, exhibitions and other activities being held under one banner to showcase the vibrant culture and creativity throughout these more remote areas of Scotland, as well as their quality produce and natural beauty. It began in April and will run for 12 months, with events being held throughout all the inhabited islands off Scotland.

K T Tunstall is one of the headliners at the Hebridean Celtic Festival

Six Scottish local authorities with island communities are working together on the project, with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar being the lead authority. Joining the Western Isles are Highland, Shetland, Orkney, North Ayrshire and Argyll and Bute, with other stakeholders including Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Event Scotland, Visit Scotland and the European Regional Development Fund.

Regular meetings are held by telephone or video conferencing with a small team of staff at Comhairle nan Eilean Siar providing the administrative support.

Now the flagship events have been decided, it will be full steam ahead in staging the programme, which includes events in a myriad of categories including music, performing arts, heritage, arts and crafts, writing and publishing, food and drink and sport and outdoor.

One of the main events in the Scotland’s Islands calendar is the Hebridean Celtic Festival, being held in Stornoway in July. Other flagship events include a drama production of The Tempest at the St Magnus International Festival in Orkney next month, the Feisean BLAS festival in Skye and the Small Isles in September, and a storytelling festival at the end of October, which will involve storytelling events in a range of locations throughout the islands.

Details of the programme for the festival, An Island Odyssey: Scotland and Old Europe, are due to be published on the Scottish Storytelling Centre’s website early in September.

Flagship funding has also gone to The Pier Arts Centre in Orkney, the Tobar an Dualchais  collaborative recoding project, the ATLAS community arts project in Skye and the Camanachd Association’s shinty final, as well as the Tall Ships regatta.

Flagship funding for the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness

These are only the flagship events, though. More than 150 events, exhibitions and activities will take place as part of the Scotland’s Islands year. While most will be hosted on one of the country’s 42 inhabited islands, some will be held on the mainland or even as far afield as New York. No place is out of bounds, provided it has an island link.

The website (see link below) has a comprehensive list of what’s on and is easy to search, with options of selecting events by region, dates and keywords, meaning a would-be island-hopper can put together a personal itinerary to suit their particular interests.

A pot of more than £1.3million has been put aside for the programme, with 45 per cent of that coming from Europe. The rest came from the local authorities, HIE and Event Scotland.

Scotland’s Islands is one of the Scottish government’s ‘focus’ years, which are aimed at highlighting some of the country’s great assets. The focus years aim build on the success of Homecoming 2009, which generated an additional £53.7m for the economy, and began last year with Scotland’s Year of Food and Drink.

Murdo Mackay, development manager at Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, is among those leading the project from the Western Isles.

He explained: “The project is a series of island events across all of Scotland’s islands, as many of them as possible. The aim is to put the spotlight on island events, island culture and inter-island activities.”

There is a big area to cover, from Shetland down to Arran and Cumbrae in Ayrshire.

Murdo said: “It’s of value to the islands, definitely, and it’s hoped that there will be a legacy of raising the profile of island events and opportunities that visitors have on the islands. I’m hoping it will increase awareness, boost visitor numbers and hopefully have a continuing legacy in that it will continue to increase visitor numbers to the area.”

New and already-established events both come under the banner of Scotland’s Islands – but for long-running events to have been awarded funding they must have incorporated “something different” in their offering this year to mark the occasion.

The Hebridean Celtic Festival, for example – a huge draw every summer – is putting on a second stage for the first time this year, to mark Scotland’s Islands. The second stage will host singers and musicians with an island connection, including The Open Day Rotation, Saltfishforty and The Boy Who Trapped The Sun.

There will also be a distinct ‘Scotland’s Islands’ theme throughout the entire festival, with more of a focus this year on Scottish Celtic musicians, including headliner KT Tunstall and fellow Scots stars Eddi Reader and the Peatbog Faeries.

Festival director Caroline MacLennan said: “The second stage has always been an aspiration for us and we were fortunate to secure the funding from Scotland’s Islands.”

She said Scotland’s Islands brought “another dimension to the programme”, adding: “It increases the variety and the scope and the scale and makes the festival that much more appealing for both visiting and local festival-goers.

“It’s going to make a huge difference to the festival but it’s good to have a focus on Scotland’s islands, and it can only help to promote the remoter areas of rural Scotland and draw attention to what we do – not just the festival but the wider area. We are just grateful that we’ve got their support and we’re really looking forward to a great  festival.”

Scotland’s Islands events so far – which included the Celtic Media Festival in Stornoway in April – have had a good response.

Murdo said: “We’ve had quite good feedback on the way it’s going. It looks like it’s going to be a busy tourism year for Scotland’s islands, anyway. The reports we’re getting are that it’s looking quite lively.”

© Katie Laing, 2011

Links

• Scotland’s Islands 2011

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