Festival of Small Halls tunes up

SEALL Festival of Small Halls 2019 kicks off on Friday November 22 with a triple celebration.

The first concert of the Isle of Skye’s popular winter festival takes place in Kyleakin Hall and will not only herald the start of nine days of world-class Scottish traditional music in small halls around the Isles of Skye and Raasay, but will also mark SEALL’s 2,000th event since its inception 28 years ago.

The third reason to celebrate is this special concert and cèilidh dance, which features the combined talents of eight of Scotland’s best trad musicians, is part of the 2019 Blas Festival.

SEALL’s creative director Marie Lewis said: ‘We are so excited to be working with Blas this year. Blas is such a fantastic, well-established festival which shares our ethos of highlighting culture and community and we are delighted to be part of the 2019 programme of events.

‘Our launch night in Kyleakin is going to be very special. The concert marks SEALL’s 2,000th event since it all started back in 1994. Almost all of our eight festival musicians will play together on the stage and we have some amazing talented young musicians to open the evening. The great chefs of Eòlach Food of Glenelg are putting on an optional but special two-course festival dinner at 6.30pm, which will be available to 60 diners. The music begins at 8pm.’

Trad giants Duncan Chisholm, Donald Shaw, Jarlath Henderson, Innes Watson, Su-a Lee, Lauren MacColl, Hamish Napier, Rachel Newton and Megan Henderson will be based at the Sligachan Hotel throughout the festival, which takes place between November 22-30, and will lead concerts, cèilidhs, sessions and workshops inside small halls in Braes, Breakish, Edinbane, Elgol, Glendale, Kilbeg, Kilmuir, Kyleakin, Minginish, Portree, Raasay and Waternish. Most of the participating halls are turning their event into a special celebration with pre-concert meals, bars and raffles.

The festival ends on St Andrew’s Day (November 30) with a spectacular celebratory concert and cèilidh at the iconic Sligachan Hotel, the festival’s main business sponsor, in honour of Scotland’s National Day.

For 2019, the popular Small Halls Big Cèilidh will be one of the events taking place across the world as part of the global Fair Saturday cultural movement and will raise funds for Ross-shire Women’s Aid.

Marie said: ‘November is almost upon us and we are very excited about this year’s festival. The hall committees have been fantastic and once again have got straight into