Smithsonian Folklife Festival

What happens when you put over 100 of Scotland's traditional musicians, singers, storytellers, crafts workers and an (empty) Glenfiddich still on the National Mall in Washington DC?   Over 1.1 million people drop by to say 'How are you?'.

The Smithsonian Institution's Folklife Festival is an annual two-week celebration of the cultural traditions that have contributed to America's artistic melting pot. Each year a quarter-mile stretch between the Washington Monument and the White House becomes a tented city featuring the music, crafts and food of those visiting nations whose roots are inextricably linked to those of their American cousins.

In 2003 it was the turn of Scotland, featured alongside the African nation of Mali and America's own Appalachian region. Scotland's artists were able to take part thanks to funding from the Scottish Arts Council and the Scottish Executive.

The Folklife Festival is a living museum or gallery. There are no entry fees and the day-long exhibitions, talks, concerts and performances are all held under canvas.

The atmosphere is informal and visitors are encouraged to ask questions of exhibitors, join in the performances and generally experience a small slice of Scotland in the sweltering Washington heat. Two enormous tents housed the feis and ceilidh stages, and each was regularly packed out with whooping Americans, who evidently took our musicians and their songs to their hearts.

The changing daily programme and collaborations between different singers and musicians ensured that audiences heard everything from haunting Gaelic ballads, through to the Jeely Piece song, to pipes and fiddles that could be heard on the White House lawn.

Scotland's craft traditions were also represented.  Boatbuilders, Orkney basket weavers, tapestry weavers, silversmiths, kilt-, sporran- and bagpipe makers all set up temporary workshops on the Mall, alongside cloth weavers, curling stone makers and a golf club maker, who came complete with a 'one hole' course. On the pantomime stage both the Singing Kettle and Alan McHugh's team from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama taught a new generation of young Americans when to say 'oh no you didn't'.

Nearby at the Smithsonian Institution's Arts and Industries building, the successful Celebrating Scotland's Crafts exhibition, curated by the National Museums of Scotland, was also pulling in crowds.

Sheena Wellington, traditional singer and 'host' for Scotland's former arts minister Frank McAveety's tour to the site, summed up the feelings of many of the artists present when she said: 'This event is hugely prestigious, and Scotland has received a tremendous honour in being invited to take part. The Smithsonian Institution has very rarely invited a northern European country to participate in the Folklife Festival and our traditional artists and crafts people are doing their country proud. The enormous goodwill, interest and pleasure of visitors and audiences, as well as our hosts, has been tremendous. I am proud to be here and Scotland should also be proud that we are here.'