Scottish Opera’s outdoor performances begin

GREENOCK plays host to Scottish Opera this afternoon as its series of autumn pop-up operas begins. The programme shifts to East Lothian on Sunday, followed by Ayr, Stirling, Easterhouse, Glasgow, Inverness, Dundee, Edinburgh and St Andrews during the rest of the month. This season’s pop-up operas feature extracts from The Gondoliers and Don Giovanni, along with The…

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Pupil hears her rap recorded by the army

A RAP written by a 12-year-old school pupil and inspired by the Windrush generation has been recorded by army musicians. Leila McPhate, from Larbert High School in Stenhousemuir, wrote The World Is A Dark Place as her entry for Never Such Innocence, an international arts competition to give children and young people a voice on conflict.…

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Festivals and venues adapt to new-look Fringe

WITH the Edinburgh Festival Fringe moving online this year, many of the city’s venues and festivals are adapting to a very different kind of August. The Edinburgh International Culture Summit, which would normally take place at the Scottish Parliament, has moved online. This year’s speakers include Assal Habibi, an assistant research professor of psychology at the Brain…

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Strathallan pupils jump with joy

ONE in three grades achieved by pupils at Strathallan in Perthshire in their Highers was an A, the independent school has revealed. All the students who passed their computing, economics, music, and modern languages Highers gained As or Bs. Headmaster Mark Lauder said: “I am absolutely delighted by these outstanding results, which represent a tremendous…

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Online concert for ‘Folk In Crisis’

ACCORDIONIST and shinty star Gary Innes will perform in an online concert tomorrow night to raise money for Folk In Crisis, a fund that supports traditional musicians affected by the coronavirus lockdown. Innes will be joined by Lochaber violinist Ewen Henderson, and will answer the audience’s questions at the end of the performance. The gig…

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Two pupils share St Mary’s Music School prize

TWO pupils from St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh have been awarded the Directors’ Recital Prize jointly for the first time in the award’s 20-year history. The judges said that flautist Cliodhna Scott (16) and accordionist Sophia Ros (17) had “achieved an exceptional quality of musicianship, communicating the character of the performance and capturing the…

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Swedish musician’s search for Scottish Heritage

Who do you think you are? A question many of us like to ask, but few really know the answer to. While tall tales from distant relatives may tell of our distant royal connections, or indeed of our ties to foreign lands, it isn’t until we peel back the layers of the family tree that…

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Online gigs from stunning locations

SOME of Scotland’s best-known locations will form the backdrop for a series of performances on the new “Music Is The Answer” Youtube channel. The Forth Bridge, the Glenfinnan Viaduct and McCaig’s Tower at Oban are just some of the sites that will play host to artists including Be Charlotte, Luke La Volpe, and Oakzy B…

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Aboyne Highland Games stages online piping contest

THREE of the piping competitions held by Aboyne Highland Games will shift online this summer. The open competitions for the piobaireachd, march, and strathspey and reel categories will be held virtually on 1 August. Two-thirds of the 32 competitors come from the UK, with the remainder from North America. Recordings of their performances will be…

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Spot the smaller things in nature this summer

Travel writer Phoebe Smith and binocular maker Swarovski offer tips to help countryside explorers slow down this summer and notice the little things in nature. 1. Look for nature’s clues Sometimes, when we take a walk, we can get so fixated on where we are headed to that we forget to take the time to…

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