Latest news with #WesternIsles
BBC News
17-07-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Female-led HebCelt festival begins on Lewis
Thousands of festival-goers are in Stornoway for this year's HebCelt music festival which has a line-up of 70% female icon Lulu is appearing alongside other performers like Nina Nesbitt, Josie Duncan, Isla Scott and Eddi Reader. Organisers said the event had doubled the population of the Western Isles town, with more than 17,000 fans attending Lews Castle Green. There has been criticism in recent years of male domination of the music industry and some festival line-ups. A spokesperson for HebCelt said 200 volunteers were involved in running the festival with confirmed visitors from South Korea, China, USA and Australia. Organisers said 70% of the music acts were female-led or featured female line-up also includes bands like Tide Lines, Skerryvore and Trail West. HebCelt, which was first held in 1996, is expected to generate money for the local economy, with hotels, bed and breakfasts and campsites reportedly event is supported by organisations including Creative Scotland, Western Isles Council, NHS Western Isles, Lewis Wind Power and SSEN. NHS Western Isles has launched a summer safety campaign, urging festival-goers to drink in moderation. Colum Durkan, director of public health for NHS Western Isles, said: "One of the main concerns is dehydration. "The temperatures are higher and we've had a lot of good weather recently."If people are drinking alcohol, rather than soft drinks or water, they are at greater risk."HebCelt runs until Saturday night.
BBC News
02-07-2025
- General
- BBC News
Thousands of crofters miss annual reporting deadline
About 3,500 crofters have failed to submit legally required documents by a deadline set by the Crofting Commission. The annual notice is a statutory requirement, designed to ensure crofters are living and working on the land. It also asks for information about maintenance. The commission, the sector's regulatory body, said while the return rate had improved, the missing data limited its ability to get a full picture of are 21,000 crofts and 16,000 crofters in Scotland, many of them in Highlands, Western Isles and Argyll. Commission chairman Andrew Thin said the figure was said: "If 3,500 people aren't telling us where they're living, you have to ask if they have something to hide or if they're just confused. We don't know yet."The rules state that crofters must live within 20 miles of their croft. They must also be using the Thin said the system was said: "The law is absolutely clear. If you don't fill in the annual notice, you will be fined."If you are not filling in your notice, because you're not living within 20 miles, you are letting your community down." Donna Smith, chief executive of the Scottish Crofting Federation, said she was shocked by the figure, but suggested there could be a lack of said: "Maybe people don't understand that it's a legal requirement."The Crofting Commission has urged crofters to familiarise themselves with their duties and ask for any assistance in completing the paperwork.
The Guardian
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Bantock: The Seal Woman album review – Celtic folk opera that never quite gets its head above water
Except perhaps in Birmingham, where his memory is still cherished for what he did for the city's music, including co-founding the CBSO, Granville Bantock (1868-1946) has slipped quietly into the margins of 20th-century British music. But as well as being an academic and conductor, Bantock was a prolific composer, with a work list including four symphonies, five concertos and nine operas, of which the last, the 'Celtic folk opera' The Seal Woman, is easily the best remembered now. The premiere of The Seal Woman in 1924 was the Birmingham Repertory theatre's first production; librettist Marjory Kennedy-Fraser took the main role of the Cailleach, whose dreams and visions tell the story of the Selkie, seal-people who emerge from the sea every seven years to live on land, shedding their skins to take human form. Kennedy-Fraser's text is a patchwork of 24 folk songs that she collected in the Western Isles, and originally she intended it as a spoken drama. Even in the operatic version, the songs remain central; Bantock's music, for an instrumental ensemble of 16 players, tactfully wraps itself around the original melodies, never dominating, and preserving as much of the integrity of Kennedy-Fraser's accompaniments as possible. Dramatically, though, it remains inert. Although the original melodies and some of the texts as Kennedy-Fraser presents them have their own intrinsic beauty, The Seal Woman comes across as rather faded, dated and uninvolving. That's despite the best efforts of conductor John Andrews and a carefully assembled cast of singers, led by Yvonne Howard as the storytelling Cailleach and mezzo Catherine Carby as the Seal Woman herself. But it's the curiosity value of the score that recommends it above all.
The Guardian
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Bantock: The Seal Woman album review – Celtic folk opera that never quite gets its head above water
Except perhaps in Birmingham, where his memory is still cherished for what he did for the city's music, including co-founding the CBSO, Granville Bantock (1868-1946) has slipped quietly into the margins of 20th-century British music. But as well as being an academic and conductor, Bantock was a prolific composer, with a work list including four symphonies, five concertos and nine operas, of which the last, the 'Celtic folk opera' The Seal Woman, is easily the best remembered now. The premiere of The Seal Woman in 1924 was the Birmingham Repertory theatre's first production; librettist Marjory Kennedy-Fraser took the main role of the Cailleach, whose dreams and visions tell the story of the Selkie, seal-people who emerge from the sea every seven years to live on land, shedding their skins to take human form. Kennedy-Fraser's text is a patchwork of 24 folk songs that she collected in the Western Isles, and originally she intended it as a spoken drama. Even in the operatic version, the songs remain central; Bantock's music, for an instrumental ensemble of 16 players, tactfully wraps itself around the original melodies, never dominating, and preserving as much of the integrity of Kennedy-Fraser's accompaniments as possible. Dramatically, though, it remains inert. Although the original melodies and some of the texts as Kennedy-Fraser presents them have their own intrinsic beauty, The Seal Woman comes across as rather faded, dated and uninvolving. That's despite the best efforts of conductor John Andrews and a carefully assembled cast of singers, led by Yvonne Howard as the storytelling Cailleach and mezzo Catherine Carby as the Seal Woman herself. But it's the curiosity value of the score that recommends it above all.
BBC News
24-06-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Debate around single authority for Western Isles
Some councillors have renewed calls for a single island authority (SIA) to run services in the Western would bring together Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, NHS Western Isles' board and Hebridean Housing Partnership in one calls came during the comhairle's policy and resources committee, which approved a medium-term financial plan to tackle a potential budget deficit of £26.5m by Islands Council agreed last week it would investigate a single authority model to reform how public services are delivered. Western Isles councillor Angus McCormack described the comhairle's financial situation as being "extremely challenging".He said a move to a SIA represented the best option for the comhairle, but added agreement would need to be reached with the Scottish government around increased another councillor, Norrie MacDonald, raised concerns SIA status could lead to budget executive Malcolm Burr told the committee: "There are two sides to that one – inevitably, when organisations merge there is a possibility of what's loosely called efficiencies, but that comes over time. "But the greater problem is with the current system whereby we are all siloed in funding streams – health, housing, local government – and that funding, if it's not adequate, means that we have to make these so-called efficiencies or reductions alone."He added: "There is always a risk in change."Reporting by local democracy report Peter Urpeth.
