WRITERS Janice Galloway, Robin Lloyd-Jones and Kathleen Jamie are among those to benefit from £900,000 worth of support for cultural activity across Scotland.
Their awards for the development of new work have been made from National Lottery Funding through Creative Scotland’s Open Project Fund.
Awards of between £1,000 and £130,000 have been made to a total of 41 festivals, musicians, visual artists, dancers and writers.
Among them is the StAnza International Poetry Festival in St Andrews which has received £130,000 funding towards its 2017 and 2018 festivals.
An award of £99,389 has been made to former artistic director of The Arches, Jackie Wylie, to build on the legacy of The Arches arts programme through Take Me Somewhere – a celebratory festival of contemporary, experimental performance taking place in venues across Glasgow in 2017.
Among visual arts awards, Scottish Historic Buildings Trust has received funding of £9,783 for an artist-led project to create a new piece of public art to reflect the values of Scottish biologist, sociologist, geographer and philanthropist Patrick Geddes around the restored Riddle’s Court in Edinburgh’s Old Town.
Visual artist Nicola Williams has received £2,152 to develop her work during a residency in Finland while Elspeth Lamb has won £1,600 to help towards an oriental papermaking course in Japan. In collaboration with a Japanese papermaker she is to explore the disappearance of words from the Oxford Junior Dictionary.
Among awards to support theatre, new Glasgow-based theatre company Blood of the Young have received £65,267 for a touring production of Daphne Oram’s Wonderful World of Sound. Theatre maker Ramesh Meyyappan has received £15,000 to develop his new work Off Kilter, described as a dark, comedic, solo theatre production.
A re-telling of Frankenstein by Phil Hardie has won £20,678 and the show, which combines circus and physical theatre, is to tour Scotland next spring.
Magnetic North Theatre Productions has won £60,000 for a new theatre production exploring faith and belief in the 21st century while a collaborative film work from theatre director Graham Eatough and visual artist Stephen Sutcliffe has won £40,000.
New Galloway arts venue Catstrand has been awarded £55,000 to help develop its arts programme.
Author Christopher Rush has won £19,000 towards his latest book while Jamie was granted £1,000, Galloway received £11,000 and Lloyd Jones was given £15,000.
Funding of £80,000 has been given to Brewband, a new music and dance production. Rapper, poet and writer Dave Hook of Edinburgh-based Stanley Odd, has been awarded £6,500 to support his first solo album. Inverness-based Garden of Elks has received £5,500 to support their second album.
Gaelic musician Maeve MacKinnon has been granted £8,000 towards her third solo album Songs of Work and Exile while WH?TE – a collaboration between Gaelic singer-songwriter Alasdair Whyte and electronic composer and musician Ross Whyte – have received £2,042 towards their debut album. The album will feature arrangements of 17th and 18th century Gaelic songs and original compositions.
MacKinnon said: “Gaelic waulking songs have always been my big love. I’ve been very lucky to have had access to some great tradition bearers over the years as well as the School of Scottish Studies, and Tobar an Dualchais.
“The idea behind the new album is really to go back to where it all started for me with the love of these songs.
“The rhythms and melodies in Gaelic work songs have an indigenous quality and patterns that can be recognised in other forms of indigenous music. The stories, melodies and rhythms convey so much – there’s darkness, there’s humour, battle, romance and tragedy. And no matter if you speak Gaelic or not, I think people can hear that in these songs.”
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