Glasgow and Edinburgh to sing with one voice at last

Published on Thursday 4 March 2010 21:40

SCOTLAND'S two biggest cities are to be brought together in song next year in the biggest ever showcase of the musical heritage of Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The arch rivals have agreed to team up for their first major cultural collaboration – a month-long campaign celebrating song lyrics and songwriters.

Some of the cities' best-known musicians are expected to be involved in the one-off festival next February, which will aim to get tens of thousands of people revealing their favourite song lyrics, writing their own songs and performing works old and new.

Ali Bowden, director of the Edinburgh City of Literature Trust, said: "The campaign will take a lot of different forms, but we're announcing the project very early so that we can encourage people to come to forward with ideas for next year. It's great that they will be bringing the two cities together."

Louise Mitchell, director of Glasgow City of Music, said: "We're very excited as this is really our first major project since we officially launched last September. We think there are endless opportunities with this."

Author Ian Rankin, an avid music fan, who has agreed to help promote the festival, said: "Great songwriters pack into a few verses or lines what it takes novelists hundreds of pages to say. The first things I remember writing were song lyrics, back when I was 11 or 12. Song lyrics helped get me interested in stories."

Events ranging from major concerts to celebrity masterclasses and schools workshops are all envisaged. Concerts will even be staged on public transport between the two cities.

Leading authors are expected to join forces with songwriters, while it is hoped rising musicians will be teamed up with established stars to create new work.

It is also hoped the campaign will get teenagers who shun books in favour of music into literature.

The project has been developed in the wake of Edinburgh and Glasgow being designated world cities of literature and music respectively by Unesco in recent years.

It is also the first new event the cities have worked on since formally agreeing to work together on such initiatives more than five years ago.

Plans for the song lyric project have been unveiled in the wake of the success of a month-long campaign, fronted by Scots-born Hollywood actor Alan Cumming, to promote poetry across Edinburgh, which ended with a star-studded Haiti fundraiser at the Queen's Hall on Sunday night.

The campaign saw 13,000 free books distributed across the city, 2,000 people attend poetry events and every school in the capital stage special events promoting poetry reading and writing.

The festival is expected to build on the success of recent high-profile projects such as Ballads of the Book, which saw Idlewild frontman Roddy Woomble team up some of Scotland's best-known authors and poets with singers and bands to produce an album.

SINGING STARS PAST AND PRESENT

EDINBURGH

THEN

Roy Williamson

Harry Lauder

Hamish Henderson

Dick Gaughan

The Rezillos

NOW

The Proclaimers

Roddy Woomble

Kris Drever

Riley Briggs

Sandy Wright

GLASGOW

THEN

Adam McNaughton

Frankie Miller

Ivor Cutler

Gerry Rafferty

John Martyn

NOW

Emma Pollock

Alasdair Roberts

Norman Blake

Paolo Nutini

Amy MacDonald