HOMECOMING MOVES NORTH
Item Posted: Tuesday 27th October, 2009
Expect a warm Highland Homecoming welcome as locals and visitors enjoy the best of our rich heritage and culture with a programme of over 100 events including spectacular street theatre, music, storytelling, walking tours and some world famous ceilidhs. Some of the highlights of the festival are outlined below, but to get full details visit www.highlandeventsandfestivals.com/highlandhomecoming
Urquart Castle will host short 30 minute performances by costumed actors will cover the history of the Macdonald family, its place and influence in Scottish history, and how the family relates to Urquhart Castle.
Eden Court Theatre in Inverness will hold a conference with 30 leading historians from half-a-dozen countries discussing Scotland’s impact across the globe. The event will be opened by First Minister Alex Salmond and chaired by broadcaster Lesley Riddoch. This unprecedented event will reveal much about the people of Scotland, exploring why they left their country over many centuries and unravelling the huge impact this small nation and its people have had on the rest of our planet. Eden Court will also be offering a round-up of some of the best cinematography and film celebrating the Highlands and Scottish culture. Film screenings include I Know Where I’m Going, Man of Aran, Culloden, and The Edge of the World.
The Little Theatre, Nairn will be highlighting 18th Century Scottish Music. The Art of Mvsick, the Highland duo comprised of James Ross and Bill Taylor, present a concert of music and poetry, including historical and traditional music associated with the Ossianic poems of James Macpherson, the songs of Robert Burns and selections from James Hogg’s Jacobite Relics of Scotland. James and Bill formed The Art of Mvsick in 1998 to explore Scottish vocal and instrumental music before 1800, using voice, historical harps, recorders, whistles and small pipes. Both specialists in Medieval and Renaissance Scottish music, they take their ensemble name from a late 16th-century manuscript of music compiled during the reign of James VI.
Sabhal Mor Ostaig will put on a concert by Skye born Mairearad Green, an exceptionally gifted accordionist, piper and pianist, best known as a member of The Anna Massie Band and Box Club. Her ‘Passing Places’, written for Celtic Connections 2009, takes the form of a musical and filmic journey through the spectacular scenery and cultural riches of the Coigach peninsula, in her native Wester Ross. Reflecting 2009’s celebration of Homecoming, the music’s recurrent motifs and changing themes unfold against a visual backdrop created by Magnus Graham. Mairearad will lead an eight-piece group throughout this stunning performance.
There are masses of exhibitions on around the Highlands including ‘How Ten Scottish Books Changed the World’, ‘Letters Home’, and ‘Scottish Innovation’, so whatever your interests Highland Homecoming should give you something to do, see and hear.