Following on from fantastic activities last year, the Scottish Storytelling Centre celebrates and enjoys Scotland’s national day at the home of Scotland’s Stories with St Andrew’s Day celebrations as part of Scotland’s Winter Festivals.
Scots and Scots-at-heart can celebrate Scotland’s unique heritage and distinctive culture through the Centre’s stellar line-up of storytelling, song, music and food for all the family, ensuring residents and visitors to the Capital alike can enjoy genuine, top quality Scottish entertainment at an affordable price.
The entertainment kicks off at 11am with a session from Mrs Mash, brought to life by storyteller Marie Louise Cochrane. Mrs Mash is a storytelling cook who loves food and stories so she’s combined her two passions into tales that nourish both the body and brain.
Mrs Mash uses interactive stories, songs, rhymes and joining in fun with younger children and families, cunningly educating and encouraging healthy living through a love of good grub. For Scotland’s patron saint, the focus is on home grown favourites, like neeps and tatties, as well as adding a spice of drama with demonstrations in butter making to tame runaway oatcakes and an exploration of the food that fairies favour most.
At 2pm there will be workshop session with Frieda Morrison and Aileen Carr that delves into the treasure trove of the Greig Duncan folk collection, associated with the North East of Scotland. The workshop offers insight into the material and advice on how to perform it, followed with an evening concert at 7.30pm that allows the audience to uncover the riches of Scotland’s greatest folk song collection performed by some of the most acclaimed singers in Scotland.
The collection Greig Duncan is so named after the two principal collectors – Gavin Greig and Reverend James B Duncan – who compiled almost 2000 Scots songs in the early 20th century in Aberdeenshire, which gives fantastic insight into this part of Scotland’s social and cultural history.
35 of these pieces, from love songs to bothy ballads, have been made available in an online archive which was developed by broadcaster and traditional singer Frieda Morrison who is Artist in Residence at Celtic and Scottish Studies, who states:-“This is a huge step. It will help widen access to this important collection by enabling students from all over the world to see live performances of these precious songs. It is a great opportunity for Scotland to shine brightly.”
What better opportunity than a chance to catch this collection live at the Storytelling Centre on St Andrew’s Day as Frieda Morrison, Aileen Carr, Steve Byrne, Lucy Pringle, Alison McMorland, Geordie McIntyre, Sarah Beattie and Jo Miller, plus special guest Fraser Fifield, perform this treasure trove of songs in the comforting, atmospheric Old Town setting of the Netherbow Theatre.
And there will be guaranteed theatrics from Andy Cannon at 3pm with Tales of a Grandson: My Story of Scotland. Andy launched a year exploration to reshape and reground Scotland’s story at the 500th anniversary of The Battle of Flodden at Flodden Field on 9th September 2013. Andy is aiming to create a contemporary response to Sir Walter Scott’s classic history of Scotland, Tales of a Grandfather, written to his young grandchild. Throughout the year Andy will share small chapters from this great story and the project will culminate in a day-long epic storytelling experience performed in October & November 2014 at the Scottish International Storytelling Festival.
“As a storyteller who often mines the rich seam of our country’s colourful past, I was struck that the much anticipated 700th anniversary of Bannockburn should follow so soon after more muted reflections commemorating 500 years since the national tragedy that was Flodden,” explains Andy. “As chance would have it the latter of these historic landmarks fell in the same week as my 50th birthday so I felt that there was no better place or time to begin my quest. During my fiftieth year I plan to travel throughout Scotland, telling the epic story of its past in five separate chapters from the dawn of pre-history right up until the outbreak of the Great War in 1914.”
The Gaberlunzie Man is the first chapter in this new saga of our past and Andy will share insights from his first 3 months of story collecting, as well as exploring links with the myriad stories of our nation’s colourful past in a guaranteed afternoon of intrigue, delivered by a charismatic raconteur.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
