Musicians head for Moscow

MOSCOW is the target for a group of musicians from the Western Isles next month as a cultural exchange develops between An Lanntair Gallery in Stornoway and the Moscow Caledonian Club.

The group will be taking part in a weeklong trip to the Russian capital and putting on a series of performances. They expect to be part of the extensive media coverage of the event in Russia.

The trip, which will cost around £7,100, has won backing from Western Isles Enterprise and the LEADER+ project.

The trip which starts on November 26 is being supported with £3000 from LEADER+ to assist the two organisations involved.

The event in which the group are taking part is the Fifth Annual Winter Festival of Scottish Culture which takes place in Moscow between  November 27 and December 4. This year the focus is on piping and the invited pipers are from the Western Isles namely Anna Murray and Don Neil Macritchie with accompanying musicians Iain Finlay Macleod (guitar) and Quee Macarthur (bass/percussion).

The musicians have an intensive programme ahead of them, playing seven concerts in seven nights including the highly prestigious City of Moscow St Andrew's Day Ball.

The Moscow Caledonian Club has also organised a series of sightseeing trips for the group including a visit to the Kremlin. The musicians will be accompanied by Alex Macdonald, the programme officer at An Lanntair, as organiser for the international exchange on an ongoing basis. The group returns to Lewis on Thursday December 5.

LEADER + aims to enhance the natural and cultural heritage of the Western Isles, Skye and Lochalsh and reinforce the economic environment in order to contribute to job creation. LEADER + also aims to improve the organisation abilities of communities whilst developing community sustainability.

The programme can offer communities the chance of putting new and fresh community-based ideas into practice bascd around a theme of "the use of new know how and new technologies to make the products and services of rural areas more competitive." Organisations are being encouraged to apply for funding from the LEADER + programme by contacting their local enterprise company office.

Moscow Caledonian Club was founded in the end of 1994, the first such grouping in Russia or the former USSR. Its founder and President Vitaly Mironov visited Stornoway last October to begin the exchange with An Lanntair. Club membership is open to all interested in Scotland and her heritage as well as to descendants of Scots in Russia.

The initial visit by Vitaly Mironov led to the performance in Stornoway last May of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra in a first joint initiative.

WIE chief executive Donnie Macaulay said that this kind of cultural link-up, which could bring gains to wide sections of the local community, was an ideal target for LEADER+ and was the sort of project which WIE was very happy to support.

"I wish the musicians all the best for this trip and I am sure that their talent will win recognition from the audiences in Moscow," he said.

Issued: November 15, 2002