Musicians to meet up for Highland Music Day

The Council’s annual event, Highland Music Day, takes place on Thursday (6 October) when 750 young musicians of all abilities from Highland primary and secondary schools come to Inverness to take part in a day of workshops and group playing.

Seven different venues throughout the city will be used to host activities for the young musicians of strings, brass, woodwind, bagpipes and pipe band drumming, traditional music and percussion.

Tutors will include flautist Susan Frank, clarinettist Laurence Gill,  saxophonist Richard Ingham, brass educator Glenn Munro, percussion group Mugen Taiko drummers , traditional musicians Charlie McKerron and Gordon Gunn, and Highland Council Instrumental Instructors.

The Highland Council’s Music Development Officer Norman Bolton said:  “We are all really excited and looking forward to the Music Day has now become an established annual event.  It has taken a lot of organising as on the same day we will have participants for seven different musical genres playing in seven different venues around the city and the logistics of getting them to and from the event are complicated to say the least. 

“The Music Day activities will be a mixture of workshops and group activities and a big bonus will be the special guest tutors who are all experts in their field.  They will spend the day working with the students and no doubt provide lots of encouragement and advice.  I would like to thank all the Highland Instrumental Instructors and everyone involved in pulling together what I know will be a terrific day.”

Chairman of the Council’s Adult and Children’s Services Committee, Councillor Alasdair Christie is delighted that this year more young people will be taking part than any of the previous years.  He said: “Highland Music Day is a fantastic opportunity, particularly as it draws together so many musicians of all ages and abilities. The increased number of young people taking part this year proves how popular a fixture the event is becoming in the yearly calendar.  I am sure everyone taking part will not only benefit from the great musical aspects of the day, but also from the chance to meet and play with peers from other parts of the Highlands.”