People in Sutherland can look forward to three successive summers of live traditional music events at various venues throughout the region with help from Caithness and Sutherland Enterprise (CASE).

CASE is helping to fund a programme with Feis Chataibh – a well established feisan event for young musicians - giving nine talented young people per year the chance to fine-tune their performing skills.

Known as ‘The Ceilidh Trail’, the ambitious project aims to form a group of traditional musicians, between the ages of 12 and 22, who will perform at a series of locations throughout Sutherland. Successful applicants will be paid £150 per week for taking part in the four week programme.

The first week will be spent working with an experienced musician drawn from Feis Chataibh’s existing list of tutors. The idea is that the youngsters will develop their performance prior to setting out on the 12 or 14 venue tour. It will also be the job of one of the young musicians to make arrangements for ‘The Ceilidh Trail’, for example booking venues, arranging transport, accommodation and so on.

To gauge demand for the event, Feis Chataibh sent a questionnaire to various hotels, halls and tourist venues, to which they received several very positive replies and invitations to perform.

Ken Houston of Feis Chataibh said: "This is a great opportunity for our young musicians, and an experience of which we hope they will take full advantage. We are delighted with the funding we have received which has enabled us to make this investment in the future of our musical tradition."

Community economic development (CED) manager at CASE Anna MacConnell said: "Feis Chataibh has a long history of delivering valuable cultural tuition to young people in Sutherland. However, this is the first time it has branched out into the performance and promotional skills required to take traditional music to the wider public.

"The funding available from the Highlands & Islands Special Transitionary Programme through the CED programme will offer three groups of young people over the next three summers a chance to develop their wider performance skills whilst still learning from experienced musicians."

As well as funding from CASE and the Caithness and Sutherland CED programme, financial support has also come from the National Lottery’s Community and the Highland Council. This will enable ‘The Ceilidh Trail’ to take place this summer and in 2003 and 2004.