Arts share £700,000 awards to promote top talent
Creative Scotland scheme set to help 42 musicians and projects
MUSICIANS, authors and theatre groups are among dozens of artists who have been awarded funds to help develop and promote their talent.
Several of the 42 awards totalling more than £700,000 go to musicians or musical projects, including funding for Honeyblood, James Yorkston, Les Sirenes, Concerto Caledonia and Alba Brass, and a major project inspired by the innovative music of the late Martyn Bennett.
The awards, made through Creative Scotland’s Open Project Funding scheme, includes grants of up to £77,659 for festivals, musicians, visual artists, dancers and writers.
Be Charlotte, musician Charlotte Brimner, receives an award to embark on a tour of South East Asia and record her debut album in Thailand. A grant of £56,500 has been given towards The Move Sessions – a “series of artistic residencies bringing together celebrated Scottish tradition bearers with progressive recording artists from around the world, to create collaborative new recordings of traditional Scottish songs”.
The Move Sessions will celebrate both “the music of Martyn Bennett and Scottish oral tradition, and bring both to new audiences in Scotland and around the world” the award says. Acclaimed Scottish folk band Lau has received funding to deliver musical workshops as part of their Lau-Land event, at Summerhall, Edinburgh.
The Edinburgh Independent & Radical Book Fair, which ran from October 26-30, received £10,000 for a book festival “aimed at promoting small and independent presses and writing outwith the mainstream”.
Alan Morrison, head of music at Creative Scotland, said: “Scotland’s music is world-class in its quality and diversity, and it’s great to see that reflected in the latest batch of Open Project Funding awards.
“While Honeyblood are flying the flag for Scottish indie-rock on a North American tour, folk veteran Dougie MacLean is bringing incredible talent to his local turf with the Perthshire Amber Festival and James Yorkston is encouraging fascinating collaborations in his home region with his Tae Sup Wi’ A Fifer series.
“We’re also proud to be backing Be Charlotte’s debut album and getting behind an amazing talent who will be topping next year’s ones-to-watch lists north and south of the Border.”
Irvine-based illumination: Harbour Festival of Light, November 30 – December 3, receives funding to stage a “four-day festival of creative light” to celebrate St Andrew’s Day.
In an award made to crafts, textile design collective Collect Scotland receive funding to stage an exhibition at The Lighthouse, Scotland’s Centre for Design and Architecture, Glasgow in 2017.
Among the literature awards PEN Scotland receives the highest funding award, more than £77,000 towards their project Many Voices – a series of writing workshops bringing together Scottish and international writers to collaborate with “marginalised groups and communities across Scotland, exploring through writing and discussion the themes most important to them”.
‘‘ Scotland’s music is world-class in its quality and diversity, and it’s great to see that reflected in the latest batch of Open Project Funding awards