Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop
Background and context
National Lottery Awards nomination
Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop were recently nominated for a National Lottery Award.
Founded as a club in November 2002, Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop teaches traditional fiddle, as well as offering traditional music concerts, arts, crafts and author events to the Lochgoilhead community and residents and tourists across Cowal and Argyll.
Originally the aim of the club was to gather a small group of local players to put on concerts, but community demand for both a tuition and events programme led to the club being reconstituted as a charity, and the range of its activities widened. The Workshop now aims to 'advance education, in particular by promoting the performance, learning, and appreciation of Scottish traditional fiddle music and its contemporary development; the understanding of its links with other cultural and artistic traditions, particularly those of song and dance; and to act as a conduit for these traditions.'
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In the summer of 2004, through the Youth Music Initiative, Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop was able to offer Saturday classes at three centres – Strachur, Inverary and Lochgoilhead – and weekly tuition in four schools. |
| The Workshop continues to raise money for regular traditional fiddle tuition in local primary schools in Lochgoilhead, Strachur, Kilmodan and Tighnabruaich as well as Dunoon Grammar, and also puts on free schools concerts and Come and Try sessions. They also subsidise classes for adults and children at three local community venues. |
Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop has built up a reputation for arranging top quality concerts, often with internationally known musicians, to play in local venues including Cairndow, Glendaruel, Strone, Strachur, Portsonnachan, Ardrishaig and Loch Goil. Their concerts have often sold out and have clearly demonstrated the appetite for more good quality live music in the area. Performances coming up in the next few months include Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas on Sunday 12 August, and Chris Stout and Catriona McKay on Sunday 2 September.
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Another strand of the Workshop's work has been to establish a local Fèis. A weekend for youngsters earlier this year was put on in conjunction with the local outdoor centre, and 30 children had the time of their lives. |
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Many children that were involved in the Fèis greatly enjoyed the mix of instruments that included; fiddle, clarsach, accordion, highland pipes, Gaelic song, step dance and general Gaelic mayhem, and were also wildly enthusiastic about the outdoor pursuits.
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Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop was short-listed in the Best Arts Category for this year’s National Lottery Awards. Out of 640 nominations, the judges picked ten Arts projects from around the UK for the public to vote on. |
The three projects from each category with the highest number of votes will go through to the final round of public voting, which will run from 13 - 31 August. The winning projects will be announced on a prime-time television show on BBC1, and will win £2,000 to be spent on their project.
The National Lottery Awards began in 2004 as part of the tenth birthday celebrations for the National Lottery to celebrate and recognise the difference that these projects have made to people, places and communities all across the UK. They have proved such a success that they are now an annual feature of the National Lottery good causes calendar. Each year hundreds of entries are received from a wide range of charities, community and voluntary projects, as well as dedicated individuals who all have a unique story to tell. Last year over 100,000 public votes were received which has shown there is great support and pride for local projects.
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In the past, Lochgoildhead Fiddle Workshop has scooped a Scots Trad Music Awards for Best Community Project, and they were recently Highly Commended, taking second place in the TFN Annual Charity Awards in their Community Action sector.
For more information, visit the Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop website. | |