WHAT’S THE STORY?

THE stories of World War I will be “brought to life” in poetry, music and visual art in a major programme of events this year, with many taking place in Scotland.

Orkney, Leith and rural Fife are among the areas set to host key cultural events in a year-long run by 14-18 NOW, the official UK arts programme to commemorate the Great War.

As many as 140 artists will take part in the project, which organisers hope will attract audiences of up to 20 million people around the UK.

Director Jenny Waldman said the result will be very relevant: “An incredible range of artists have created new works that bring the stories of the First World War to life, and show how this global conflict still affects the world today.”

SO WHAT’S GOING ON?

When Britain declared war on Germany at 11pm on August 4, 1914, Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey watched the street lamps being lit in Whitehall and remarked: “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”

However, 14-18 NOW aims to prevent our collective memory of the conflict slipping into darkness.

The first phase of the project came in 2014, and two years on it continues to pull in leading names from across the arts world.

This year, Blur frontman Damon Albarn will be among those taking part, with his Africa Express project presenting the Syrian National Orchestra for Arabic Music and guests at the Royal Festival Hall in London this summer.

The orchestra appeared with Albarn in Damascus in 2008 before featuring on a record by his Gorillaz side project and joining that group on a world tour.

Clothing by Vivienne Westwood will feature in a Freedom and Fashion exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery and poet Simon Armitage will present new poetry reflecting on the Battle of the Somme as part of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival.

That battle also provides the inspiration for a major new choral work by award-winning US composer David Lang.

Memorial Ground will receive its world premiere at the East Neuk Festival in July as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Chorus and amateur choirs from around Fife join Paul Hillier and his Theatre of Voices for a unique performance.

The work reflects on the tragedy of the conflict, but also acts to “honour and remember the many since then who have made sacrifices in order that we may live the lives we do”.

ANYTHING ELSE?

Glasgow-based Turner Prize nominee Ciara Phillips will create a “dazzle ship” at Leith Docks, transforming the MV Fingal which is berthed at the Prince of Wales Dock in the manner once used to cover battle-ready vessels with camouflage patterns.

The finish product will also be a central element of this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival.

Elsewhere, a new theatre piece titled The 306: Dawn will be shown in a transformed barn on Dalcrue Farm in the Perthshire countryside, with the setting marking a “stark contrast to the inhumanity of war”.

Open to audiences aged 14 and over, the piece is based on real events and charts the journey of three of the 306 British soldiers executed for cowardice, desertion and mutiny during WWI and includes songs exploring the “vulnerability and devastation” of the battlefield and the internal conflict of the men. And Edinburgh-born writer Jackie Kay is among five leading poets from countries involved in WWI set to unveil new works in a collaboration titled Fierce Light.

Kay, Yrsa Daley-Ward, Bill Manhire, Paul Muldoon and Daljit Nagra will “endeavour to understand the incomprehensible”, exploring contemporary events while contemplating the world-changing conflict.

A series of specially-commissioned short films reacting to the poems will also be shown at the Norfolk & Norwich Festival in May.

But perhaps the standout Scottish event in this year’s calendar will take place in one of its most remote parts. Weeping Window – part of sea of ceramic poppies once displayed at the Tower of London – will transfer to St Magnus Cathedral in Orkney to commemorate the Battle of Jutland from April 22-June 12, later moving to the Black Watch Museum in Perth.

When installed at the Tower in 2014, artist Paul Cummins and designer Tom Piper used 888,246 poppies to honour every death in the British and Colonial forces.

More than 100,000 sailors on 250 vessels took part in the battle, which claimed the lives of upwards of 6,000 Royal Navy and 2,500 German seamen.

Alistair Buchan, chief executive of Orkney Islands Council, said: “The spectacular poppies installation has a huge impact on those who experience it as a powerful reminder of enormous loss of life.

“This is the year that Orkney will host the UK’s national commemoration of the Battle of Jutland. I can think of no more apt a setting for the Weeping Window sculpture than the cathedral, which will be at the heart of those commemorations.”

Waldman added: “We are delighted to be able to bring Poppies: Weeping Window to Orkney. This is the furthest the poppies have travelled and it presents a wonderful opportunity for even more people to experience these iconic sculptures.”

For information, visit www.1418now.org.uk