Last year was the first year that the Blas Festival moved into the Inverness area, so this will be the first opportunity the bilingual festival will have to stage events at Eden Court.

The first of these is tomorrow's Taste of Blas Festival with the Peatbog Faeries, Dàimh, piper Fred Morrison and Canadian guest artist J. P. Cormier and local talent from the Fèis movement. But Eden Court will also host a concert headlined by star guests, The Chieftains, on Wednesday and a third concert in the OneTouch Theatre with an international line up of musicians including Ireland's Nuala Kennedy Band and Eddy, Power and Randall.

Artistic director Brian Ó hEadhra, who is already working on the 2009 festival, was delighted to have Eden Court as a focal point for the festival, allowing Blas to have international guests of the calibre of The Chieftains.

"We're always trying to make it bigger, but it just grows naturally as festivals do," he said. "It seems to almost double in size every year."

The festival has also developed and international following with music fans as far away as Canada waiting for the programme each year and arranging their holidays so they can catch at least some of the performances.

In total over 100 musicians will take part in 45 shows in what has been described as the fastest growing festival in the UK, which is just in its fourth year.

"Blas" is Gaelic for taste or flavour and this year will live up to that title not only by offering a taste of Highland music, but a taste of Highland food with various food events. These include a food and music cruise down Loch Ness on the Jacobite Queen accompanied by Nuala Kennedy and her band and a three course dinner on the Strathspey Steam Railway while Eden Court's restaurant will adopt a Blas theme to its menu for the nine days of the festival.

"We've changed the title a little to 'Celebrating the Highlands' rather than 'Celebrating Highland Music'," Ó hEadhra explained. "We have food fringe events for the first time this year. It's also saying what a great place the Highlands are. If you come to one of our gigs, you will get a Highland welcome from the Highland community. Most gigs are in community halls and are run by local promoters."

Cherish The Ladies

Ó hEadhra added that he saw no reason why the "fringe" element of Blas could not expand to include other aspects of Highland culture, such as literature or drama.

Audio-visual elements have already made an appearance in Blas events, most notably last year in the festival's first ever commission, "Kin" from Wolfstone fiddler Duncan Chisholm. This year pianist and composer James Ross will be joining forces with Mr McFall's Chamber, piper and saxophonist Fraser Fifield and photographer Catriona Murray for "Chasing The Sun", a work inspired by Ross's native north Highlands. It receives its premiere on Tuesday in Achiltibuie, but comes to Resolis Community Hall on the Black Isle next Thursday.

It will also be shown at Glasgow's Celtic Connections Festival in January of next year and Cape Breton's Celtic Colours Festival in Canada, which was the direct inspiration for Blas.

Most unusual venue for this year's festival will be a private plane belonging to Highland Flying School.

That is where a lucky competition winner will have a private music themed tour of the Highlands with Bruce MacGregor of Blazin' Fiddles as guide.

"I heard it was won by an accordionist," Ó hEadhra added.

"Maybe we can persuade them to take their accordion up so they can have a bit of a session."

Printer friendly version

Email this article to a friend

Bookmark this

---