Nairn Book & Arts Festival

nairn book & arts festival

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7th - 14th June

Nairn festival will be even bigger than ever this year. A very busy week will feature writers such as Christopher Brookmyre, William Dalrymple, Dr Christopher Duffy, Janice Galloway, Isla Dewar, Bernard McLaverty, Lesley Riddoch, Cameron McNeish, Professor Robert Crawford and Professor Tom Devine.

Nairn Book & Arts Festival, however, offers much more than prestigious writers: as you will see in this programme there will be a greater emphasis on the visual arts with exhibitions, competitions and workshops for all ages.

We will be hosting two well-known stand-up comedians, Jeremy Hardy, and Andy Hamilton, both regulars on the BBC and at the Edinburgh Festival, and dramatic and musical performances by local and international artists. We will be featuring traditional Scottish musicians such as the Vass Twins, Anna Massie and Julie Fowlis and her band who recently won a BBC Folk Music award and now have an international reputation. The Carducci Quartet and James Barralet will bring international standard chamber music.

The impressive new Community Centre and refurbished Court House along with our traditional venues will offer audiences some excellent acoustics and comfortable settings in which to enjoy the Festival.

There will be so much to interest and excite you. Please come to as many events as you can and, like so many people did last year: Catch the festival habit!








John Jack Contracts Scotland Made Easy Clark's Maintenance Clarks Butchers Sunny Brae Hotel Claymore Hotel Royal Bank of Scotland William Cope & Son Geddes Associates Newton Hotel Golf View Hotel Broadley Garden Centre Sandstone Press Nairn Community Centre Nairn Museum Macrae's Travel Association of Nairn Business Sarah Speakman Garden Design Sandy Willison The Davidson Trust -oOo- We would also like to thank: Balance Sports Clinic East2West Financial Services QC Framing

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Andy Hamilton	Bernard MacLaverty	Cameron McNeish	Christopher Brookmyre
Andy Hamilton is a brilliant comedy scriptwriter, director actor and stand-up comedian. He contributes to a huge range of programmes, including Not The Nine O’clock News, Who Dares Wins, Alas Smith and Jones, Drop the Dead Donkey and Old Harry’s Game, In recent years, he's become a familiar face on QI and Have I Got News For You.	Bernard MacLaverty was born in Belfast but now lives in Glasgow. He has published five collections of short stories, (the latest is Matters of Life & Death) and four novels. He has written versions of his fiction for other media - radio, television and screenplays and recently a libretto for Scottish Opera.	Cameron McNeish recognised as one of the UK's best known mountain walkers, writers and commentators will present his Wild Scotland A Spirit of Place audiovisual. Cameron writes a lively column for the Sunday Herald and edits TGO magazine.	Christopher Brookmyre Scottish writer and satirist and winner of the Glenfiddoch among other literary awards mixes politics and social comment in his novels. He may give sneak preview of his new novel to be published this August.
Lesley Riddoch	Bridget Kendall	Jeremy Hardy	Tam Dean Burn
Lesley Riddoch’s book Riddoch on the Outer Hebrides is a thought-provoking commentary based on her cycle journey through a beautiful island chain facing seismic cultural and economic change. She runs her own independent radio, podcast and TV company, Feisty Productions, which produces Riddoch Questions, a weekly phone-in programme hosted by Lesley on BBC Radio Scotland. She is a columnist for The Scotsman and contributes regularly to other papers.	Bridget Kendall, a BBC correspondent for nearly 20 years, has a wide range of reporting experience with particular expertise in Russia. She was in the pool of White House journalists who travelled extensively with President Clinton, visited warzones in Iraq and Afghanistan, and conducted interviews with politicians as varied as Hillary Clinton and President Putin. Her talk will draw on her experiences as a BBC Foreign correspondent to assess how far the role of the media in the world has changed.	‘One minute lewd, the next blimpish, he is always one step wide of insult and one ahead of expectation’ The Financial Times Jeremy Hardy is one of the UK's foremost and respected stand-up comedians. His live work has included Just 4 Laughs, (Montreal Comedy Festival), the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where he won the prestigious Perrier Award, and numerous sell out tours of the UK and Ireland. He frequently appears on Radio 4’s The News Quiz.	Actor Tam Dean Burn was seen most recently in his adaptation of the novel, Venus As A Boy, which toured from Orkney to London, and in the stage version of Tutti Frutti by John Byrne for the National Theatre of Scotland. He now presents a staged tribute to the late cartoonist and writer ‘Harry Horse’, which complements the retrospective exhibition of his cartoons, which will be on display at the Community Centre during the Festival week.
Charlie Lockley	Roy Dennis	William Dalrymple	Janice Galloway
The fine dining restaurant at Boath House has been voted one of Scotland top 10 best restaurants. Charlie Lockley, Head Chef has who has taken the restaurant from 2AA to 4AA rosette status, will demonstrate his legendary cooking skills.	Distinguished ornithologist, ecologist and conservationist Roy Dennis has worked in the Highlands and Islands since 1958. He has been involved in many of the major activities in bird conservation and management and has travelled worldwide advising on a range of wildlife projects. The subject of his talk will be Ospreys at home and abroad.	William Dalrymple writer, historian and winner of the Duff Cooper Prize for History and Biography among other awards writes extensively on India where he lives for half the year He will be reading from his travel books on India and the Middle East. He returns to Nairn by popular demand.	Janice Galloway, winner of the Jura Writers’ Retreat award is a versatile Scottish writer of novels short stories and a memoir of sorts, yet to be published. She will speak about her latest Memoir, This is not about me.
David St John Thomas	Raoul Curtis-Machin	Susan Alexander	Carole Baxter
Author and former publisher David St John Thomas has handled many books on local subjects. He takes his own recently-published example to demonstrate the planning and decisions involved. David is best known as the founder of David & Charles, the publishing house he ran for 30 years. On ‘retirement’ he published Writers’ News and ran other services for writers from Nairn.	Raoul Curtis-Machin, co-author of the new book Garden Plants for Scotland will talk about choosing the best plants for your garden. He is currently Gardens Adviser for The National Trust and gardening correspondent for The Herald Magazine. He has also been Landscape Historian for Historic Scotland, publisher and editor of The Northern Garden magazine, and has designed gardens for rock stars, royalty and celebrity chefs.	Photo by courtesy of 'The Northern Scot' Susan Alexander was introduced to ballet at the age of nine and just 12 years later was acclaimed as a star at London’s Royal Opera House. She toured worldwide with the Royal Ballet Company, was coached by Margot Fonteyn and Beryl Grey, and has recently returned to the ballet world giving master classes and demonstrations. Her passionate love of dance shines through in her talks and books.	Carole Baxter, a popular presenter on the Beechgrove Garden, also regularly contributes to Radio Scotland’s ‘The Beechgrove Potting Shed’ and Radio 4’s ‘Gardeners’ Question Time’. Carole is a self-employed professional horticulturist. She co-wrote, with Jim McColl, The Beechgrove Garden, A Month by Month Guide to Gardening in Scotland, gives advice at garden centres, and contributes regular columns to national newspapers and magazines.
Sheena Blackall	Dr Christopher Duffy	Isla Dewar	Professor Tom Devine
Words and a Song from Poetry Scotland Poetry Scotland brings you an exciting three poet integrated session: Sheena Blackhall, the distinguished writer and singer from Aberdeen, Richie McCaffery, promising young poet from Stirling University, and Sally Evans giving her slant as poet/editor of the well known poetry broadsheet.	Dr Christopher Duffy lectured in War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the Army Staff College. He is one of the advisers to the Culloden Battlefield Memorial Project. His publications include The '45. In his talk What really lay behind Culloden he investigates what made the Highland Army of Bonnie Prince Charlie a truly formidable military machine, and uncovers the processes that enabled the Duke of Cumberland to bring it to final defeat at Culloden.	Isla Dewar worked as a journalist before publishing her first book Keeping Up with Magda, She has since written a further nine novels. Her second book was made into a film starring Helena Bonham Carter and Gina McKee. She lives in Fife with her husband, Bob, a cartoonist and illustrator. They have two sons. She will talk about her work, life as a writer and read from her latest book The Consequences of Marriage.	Professor Tom Devine OBE FRSE FBA is widely regarded as the pre-eminent authority on the history of modern Scotland. He holds the Chair of Scottish History and Palaeography at Edinburgh University and has been awarded many accolades during his distinguished academic career. Author or editor of around 30 books, including The Scottish Nation, an international best seller. He will talk about 300 years of the Union (and what might become of it).
James Ross	Fred Johnston	Robert Crawford	Julie Fowlis
Back by popular demand following his enthusiastic reception last year, James Ross introduces and performs more poetry from his collections Life, Death and Stuff, Orkney Strata, Mosaics and American Sublime. The title of his reading/stand-up event this year is "Don’t get me started – again".	Fred Johnston was born in Belfast in 1951. A novelist, poet and playwright, he is founder of Galway City's annual literature festival. With Peter Sheridan and Neil Jordan he formed the Writer's Co-Operative. He recently completed a writing residency at the Princess Grace Library in the Principality of Monaco.	Scottish poet Robert Crawford published his first collection, A Scottish Assembly, in 1990. He is Professor of Modern Scottish Literature at the University of St Andrews. He will discuss and read from his latest collection of poetry, Full Volume.	Julie won the Horizon award at the 2006 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, won Folk Singer of The Year at the 2008 awards and was nominated for the Folk Singer of the Year award at the 2007 awards. She appeared on Later With Jools Holland on BBC 2 in May 2007. This cast her into the mainstream. Performing with Jenna Cumming and Friends Nairn Gaelic Choir
More Music
The Carducci String Quartet		James Barralet	Jenna Cumming
Prize-winners in six international chamber music competitions in the space of four years, the Carducci Quartet is recognised as one of Europe’s top young string ensembles. The quartet has been invited to perform at numerous prestigious music festivals, and has toured extensively in Europe. For this concert, when they will play quartets by Haydn and Horovitz, they will be joined for a performance of Schubert’s string quintet by James Barralet.		Winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Julius Isserlis scholarship in 2003, and since then has given concerts throughout Europe, in India, Korea and the USA. He has performed at the Wigmore Hall and twice as soloist with Basel Symphony Orchestra playing Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1 and Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations.	"Jenna Cumming has a rare singing talent which has been apparent since childhood. One of a growing breed of young singers from the west of Scotland, she has won several awards and accolades for her singing talents in the past few years. She has a lovely natural quality to her voice and the clearest diction you could wish for.” Performing with Julie Fowlis and other friends.
Ian Hardie & Duncan MacGillivray		Mike & Ali Vass	Anna Massie
Nairn fiddler and composer, Ian Hardie plays selections from his acclaimed new Scottish-Appalachian crossover CD 'Westringing' ("a must for all lovers of fiddle music") with long-time colleague Duncan MacGillivray, from Tain, accompanying on guitar and moothie		Playing a varied mix of traditional and contemporary tunes, songs with close vocal harmonies and footstompin’ jigs and reels, Mike (fiddle, guitar, vocals) and Ali (piano, vocals) give performances which are bursting with energy, drive and vitality.	Winners of the “Best Folk Band” Award at the 2006 Scots Trad Music Awards, The Anna Massie Band is a young, dynamic trio finding a very warm welcome amongst Scotland’s top bands. The band features Anna Massie (Young Trad Musician of the Year 2003), on fiddle, mandolin, tenor banjo and flat-picking guitar, Jenn Butterworth on guitar and vocals and Mairearad Green on accordion and border pipes.
Other Events		Other Speakers
Out of the Darkness Black Isle Bronze Tour Kathakali Highland Contemporary Art Exhibition Time and Tide Installation CD sized art for charity Harry Horse Cartoons The Edinburgh Puppet Lab Elizabeth Cameron's Botanical Art Exhibition The Search for the Brodie Daffodils Piccolo Press Tour Adult Workshops: Felt Making, Portraiture; Writing Book Cover Art competition - display of all entries Moray Art School 3rd year exhibition Liz McLardy, James Ross, Anne Macintyre and Gordon Tocher More info on above		Eric McLeod Readings from The Kerracher Man, written by Eric McLeod and published by Sandstone Press, will be combined with a discussion with the publishers about the advice, guidance and support they have provided for this new writer. Janet McInnes - from Ayrshire via Skye to Easter Ross, draws on Scottish traditional tales with a special interest in Travellers’ Tales. She has extended her repertoire to include tales from other countries, and has a gift for involving her audience through humour. Janet has organised a Storytelling Festival across Fife. Peter Mountain In his book Scraping a Living, violinist Peter Mountain talks about his career as a musician in Britain during the 20th century. He covers student days in London during the Blitz, wartime experiences in the Royal Marine Band, membership of the Boyd Neel and Philharmonia Orchestras, leading the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, working as Concertmaster of the BBC Training Orchestra, Head of Strings at the RSAMD, and as soloist and chamber musician, and playing for most of the greatest conductors. Andrew Mackintosh, ex-teacher and a native of Inverness, specialises in Highland folk tales but draws on an international repertoire. A wide range of audiences throughout Scotland have enjoyed his versatility and ability to tell a good story.