Reasons To Be Cheerful

THE SUMMER may be wearing on, but there is still plenty going around the area. The Blas Festival  takes pride of place this month, with Blair Douglas’s much anticipated Gaelic Mass heading a busy programme.

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.