What a great way to start a Friday with an email from Scottish Ballet’s Steven Roth passing on an article in today’s Times where Arts Columnist Richard Morrison mulls-over Inverness’ new status as the most cultured city in the UK, outside London.
The status and motivation for Richard’s column comes from fascinating analysis by TicketSource who have trawled through thousands of attractions to reveal the UK city with the most culture per square mile.
Am I surprised? A little. Do I think this analysis, and subsequent coverage is fantastic for our city, and the wider Highland region? Absolutely and unquestionably.
Scotland tops the charts as the most cultural region per square mile. When you consider our unique geography that’s incredible and should be a source of great pride.
As Scotland’s largest combined arts venue we’re immensely proud of our location here, in the heart of the city, on the banks of the River Ness. Read more about us here. You can read more about what we think makes our city, and region, great here.
But back to our new status, and what culture means here in our city, and here in our building.
What better way to test this than for go for a wander around this morning. In our La Scala cinema over 100 teachers from across the Highlands are taking part in a conference about creativity in the curriculum with the key note speech from Ollie Bray (@olliebray) from the Lego Foundation. Ollie, until recently ran Kinguissie High School, here in the Highlands. Read more about his journey here.
On the lawn outside a giant Oor Willie is being positioned as part of the Oor Wullie’s Big Bucket Trail. He takes his place amongst much more public art in and around the grounds of Eden Court.
Over the next three days at Eden Court there’s incredible world-cinema (& The Secret Life of Pets 2 – bringing my five year old on Sunday), Youth Theatre, the Budapest Café Orchestra, Hullabaloo - our workshops for children with additional support needs, Capoeira, the Performers UK Showcase, Just Sing, Contemporary Dance, a workshop to encourage the use of creativity in people living with Dementia and of course Oor Wullie. Browse our What's On pages to discover more.
Next weekend our stretch tent goes up for Under Canvas 2019. Our summer-long celebration of the very best Scottish music in collaboration with Feis Rois. On our lawn, with our bar, this year with an outdoor pizza-oven. It’s free (not the pizza or the beer, just the music) and it’s world-class (pizza, beer and music) and everyone’s welcome.
So yes, we’re a city alive with creativity and culture.
Come and visit, join us and join in.
This blog was written by: