Arts and Business Scotland nomination, plus more stuff from the web

St Magnus Festival/Talisman and National Theatre Scotland/Scottish Power have been nominated in the Arts & Business Scotland awards.

Elsewhere in the press and on the web:

• Robert Livingston's account of SMF for Hi-Arts
• Orquil has a photo set on Flickr
• A blogger from Graemsay writes about SMF
• Another review from Rowena Smith in the Guardian

SMF in the press and on the web #6

In contrast to the poorly-written critique from the Herald the other day, I found this review from Joyce Mcmillan for the Scotsman to be well-structured and written with some style. Although the author does fall into the Orkney = 'world according to George Mackay Brown' trap, the review of the Mixter Maxter installation is spot on, describing it as "one of the finest pieces of youth project artwork Scotland has ever produced". I particularly liked the following bit, which I don't necessarily agree with but is surely food for thought given the originality and artistic success of the multi-disciplinary high(ish) tech Mixter Maxter:

St Magnus needs to consign this sort of ageing crowd-pleaser to the bin; and strike out boldly into the newly-emerging borderlands between classical music and a dozen other art-forms less stuffy than mainstream poetry, and far less concerned about the old social hierarchy of art – from posh to popular – that the 21st century is scattering to the four winds, in Orkney as elsewhere

I can certainly agree with that last statement. Next festival as an ARG anyone...?

There are also a couple of reviews from Hi-Arts: a nice piece about Trio Medieval in the Cathedral which echoes the opinion of other people I've spoken to; and the Stromness Parish Church with Andrew Motion. Both reviews are well-written and manage to convey a more accurate sense of what Orkney is like, at least in my experience*: respectful of the place they live in, placing great value on local knowledge, but without all that mystical stuff about communing with nature and history.

* My experience: born and raised here. Went away for 20 years then came back.

SMF in the press and on the web #5

A couple of reviews from the broadsheets have turned up in the newsfeeds today, both written by Rowena Smith. The Herald has an overview of the whole SMF, liking The Lighthouse and Andrew Motion, but not Jennifer Higdon or Wendy Cope (and personally speaking, I don't think you should describe someone else's writing as "doggerel" unless you're damn sure your own writing is up to scratch...) The Guardian has a short 4/5 review for The Lighthouse, praising the production but criticising the layout and the Pickaquoy Centre acoustic.