SHORT ACCOUNTS OF SOME RECENT PROJECTS
A search for the families of singers recorded in 1931 by American folklorist J M Carpenter.
An online celebration of 70 years since the 1951 Edinburgh People's Festival Ceilidh. This tribute to the importance of the event was created with Nathan Salsburgh of ACE, the Alan Lomax Foundation, and had all the 1951 recordings made by Lomax, my notes made for the Rounder Records CD, but most importantly present day recordings of the same songs by Scots singers and groups, plus a couple from further away.
'Looking Behind Our Doors - Who Did What In Kirrie', a project I designed and won Sharing Heritage funding for, working with the Kirriemuir-based Hub which works with dementia sufferers and their carers.
'Sin I Cam By Johnshaven', gathering and investigating the rhymes old and new of a coastal village and its hinterland, with an emphasis on the Doric, a three month project (January-March 2019) jointly worked on with Sheena Blackhall, Christine Kydd and Andy Shanks, hosted by Johnshaven Museum's club for people with dementia.
'It Started With A Sack', a celebration with many local communities of their role in creating early co-operatives in Scotland, to mark the 250 anniversary in 2019 of the first food co-operative being started by Scottish weavers, initial commercial funding has been won, seeking more to extend the approach.
PLUS I was working up and hoping for action on a project celebrating the work of J T R Ritchie of Norton Park, Edinburgh, in collaboration with Edinburgh Museums, discussions were proving promising, but have lapsed into sleep.
SOME OLDER PROJECTS
For the 2013 bicentenary of David Livingstone I researched and developed several small scale projects under the generic title of Livingstone's Magic Lantern. These included a storyteller-based show about Livingstone and his great friend inventor Paraffin Young with the participation of Scots singer Christine Kydd, and a Highlands-based show about Livingstone and his other close friend geographer Roderick Murchison with the participation of storyteller and musician Bob Pegg.
I have created two websites about Livingstone and Scotland, and published a book titled Rocks In The River about Livingstone's people. The first show was initially performed in West Calder High School beside where Young lived and Livingstone visited. It then went on the St Mungo's Museum Glasgow, and to the David Livingstone Centre, Blantyre. It was in October 2013 performed in Glasgow, Mull and Edinburgh as part of the Scottish International Storytelling Festival.
A solo show called A Mountain In My Hand about the linkages between Livingstone and various Highlands places and people was performed in September in Nairn, Gairloch and Thurso, and in October in Fort William.
The Rocks In The River show was performed in Muir of Ord on 23rd November, a solo version was taken to Ormiston, Stenhousemuir and Edinburgh. I also tried to support performances of two vocal works about Livingstone that were made by Scots composer Hamish MacCunn - but without success.
More recently I created for Scotland's National Library another themed show, about Scottish Women In WW1.
I got around to publishing a book - with recordings - of my Pictworks poems and pieces.
In 2012 I developed a project called Collier Tracks that traced and tell of Scots miners here and in Nova Scotia through their songs and stories, and created a show with Siobhan Miller that took the songs to communities in Blantyre, Plean and Newtongrange.
