LIGHT is to be shone on Scotland’s home-grown music stars in a bid to extend the St Andrew’s Day celebrations this month.
Edinburgh’s Soundhouse Winter Festival will showcase musicians either from, or based in Scotland, and will run over St Andrew’s Day and the Fair Saturday weekend.
The programme includes some of Scotland’s finest jazz and trad musicians, emerging new musicians, music workshops for adults and young people and a silent film accompanied by live music and live performance poetry.
Among the headliners are award-winning pianist Fergus McCreadie and rising star Megan Black, whose music has been described as 1970s blues rock meets queer feminist pop and whose latest EP Full Circle (Part 1) was recently nominated for EP of the Year in Scotland.
Also performing will be Su-a Lee with Duncan Chisholm, Donald Shaw and Hamish Napier as well as Callum Easter & The Roulettes, fresh from touring the US, who will play the Queen’s Hall with special guest Iona Zajac.
There will be a new collaboration between outgoing Edinburgh Makar Hannah Lavery and acclaimed composer Kate Young. This one-hour show will be based on Lavery’s work Unwritten Women, with a new score by Young.
The festival’s programme also includes early evening concerts at the Traverse with Gaelic singer-songwriter Rachel Walker, Edinburgh-based poetic psychedelic supergroup Acolyte and acclaimed singer-songwriter Victoria Hume, playing alt-folk songs from her new album Radical Abundance about the “dying days” of capitalism and what might emerge next.
Other highlights over the weekend include the SWF Spotlight, a showcase of the jazz stars of tomorrow and a screening of The Rugged Island: A Shetland Lyric, accompanied by music composed by award-winning multi-instrumentalist Inge Thomson from Fair Isle with Shetlander Catriona Macdonald.
The Rugged Island: A Shetland Lyric is a tender dramatisation of Shetland life, originally filmed in 1933 by pioneering Glasgow filmmaker Jenny Gilbertson. It will be opened by a short solo set from award-winning Shetland pianist Amy Laurenson.
Festival co-producers Douglas Robertson and Jane-Ann Purdy said it would present a snapshot of the very best music produced in Scotland today.
“There’s no doubt that our small country produces some of the world’s finest musicians and we are honoured to give them a platform at our new festival,” they said. “Shining a light on our home-grown stars seems an appropriate way to extend the St Andrew’s Day celebrations across this five-day event. Despite the current gloom in the Scottish arts world, we hope the event will be inspirational and the first of many Soundhouse Winter Festivals.”
Siobhan Anderson, music officer at Creative Scotland added: “The Soundhouse Winter Festival looks to showcase some of Scotland’s finest musical talent and brighten up dark evenings with a dazzling array of acts.
“St Andrew’s weekend is the perfect time to hold such an event and it is great to see the cross-section of artists from across different genres with experimental and innovative programming and collaborations.”
The festival will run in Edinburgh from November 28 until December 2
