Blas Festival gets off to outstanding start
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BLAS 2013’s opening weekend has been described as "an outstanding success" by organisers.
The main concert on Saturday was attended by over 400 people, which doubled the audience attending on the previous year.
"Historically, the events of the first weekend do not attract such large audiences with the festival normally building momentum as it goes along, so we are delighted that our numbers showed such a dramatic increase this year," festival director Donna Macrae said.
"The entire show at Eden Court was seamlessly fabulous. Cruinn blew me away as did Snas, the Highland Council schools cèilidh band. Mànran attracted an obviously young crowd to the theatre and it was great to see everyone on their feet, jumping and clapping along.
"It’s been a fantastic start and of course the Eden Court event was just one of a dozen events across the Highlands during the first weekend and now we can look forward to a busy and entertaining week with around 40 events still to go."
On Sunday a service of cultural thanksgiving was held in Inverness Cathedral with with music and song from Margaret Stewart, Louse Hay McBain and The Inverness Fiddlers while Mànran performed at Porterfield Prison in Inverness in a collaboration between Blas and Live Music NOW.
The 30th anniversary celebration of the formation of Capercaillie is one of the highlights of Blas, which celebrates Highland and Gaelic culture.
The band, fronted by Karen Matheson, will be appearing at Eden Court on Saturday, the final night of the festival, along with Seamus Begley and Jim Murray, Inverness Gaelic Choir under the baton of Mary Ann Kennedy and the Gaelic writers Aonghlas MacNeacail and Niall O’ Gallagher.
An excerpt of the Blas 2013 new commission by piper Calum MacCrimmon will also feature at the Eden Court event on Saturday. In this new piece, he pays homage to his unique musical heritage with an exhilarating medley of original tunes and songs influenced by the ceòl mòr (classical bagpipe music) and canntaireachd traditions of Gaelic Scotland. "Boraraig" will be premiered in Beauly’s Phipps Hall on Tuesday night before moving on to Dunvegan Village Hall on Wednesday, Invergarry Village Hall on Thursday, Aviemore Primary School on Friday before the Eden Court performance on Saturday.
"Eun Beag Chanaidh/A Little Bird Blown Away" — Fiona J. Mackenzie’s new commission with the National Theatre of Scotland and the National Trust for Scotland - has been well received in Uist where it received its first showing last Wednesday evening. The production was formally launched as part of the main festival at the weekend with a full house at the Culloden Battlefield Centre and the show is now touring the Highlands, taking in Ardgay Village Hall on Tuesday, Loch Torridon Community Centre on Wednesday, Ullapool’s Macphail Centre on Thursday, Strathpeffer Pavilion on Friday befogging finishing off, very appropriately, on Saturday 14th in Camus Arts Centre on the Island of Canna.
