Folk, jazz etc: Blas looks to the islands in thanks for their generous support

FOLLOWING a period of uncertainty over funding earlier this year, the Highland festival Blas will be back this September, and with a vengeance. Last week it launched an ambitious programme which manages to encompass traditional and new music, Gaelic literature and even a shinty championship.

Now in its seventh year, Blas enlivens venues as diverse as Inverness's Eden Court Theatre, a hangar at Inverness Airport and a cruise boat on Loch Ness, not to mention ceilidhs in many a far-flung village hall.

This year, however, it will extend its scope to the Hebrides as part of the current year of Scottish Islands initiative, which came to the rescue with funding after a cash-strapped Highland Council, the festival's main backer, cut its contribution by more than 30 per cent, from 105,000 to 71,500.

"We programmed what we could with the money we knew was available, then when the Year of Scotland's Islands came along we were able to add further events," says Arthur Cormack, Gaelic singer and chief executive of Fisean nan Gidheal, the Gaelic community arts organisation which runs the festival with Donna Macrae of Firefly Productions as director. "So while we had a core of maybe 20 events programmed from February, we had to build it up to the point where we could launch the whole programme last week.

"I think we may have to work that way in the future. There will always be a Blas festival, based on the money that's available, but whether it can continue on the scale of this year and last year is questionable."

Despite these uncertain times, this year's Blas (Gaelic for "taste" or "savour") programme is an enticing one.

Flagging up the islands connection is Heisgeir, a new commission from Gaelic star Julie Fowlis, incorporating traditional music and song from the Monach Isles - as Heisgeir, just off the North Uist coast, is also known. Fowlis, who hails from North Uist, has used old family connections with the islands to create a work which combines music with narrative and film.

Another imaginative commission is Balach na Bonaid - "The Boy in the Bunnet" - from Highland pianist James Ross. Described as "traditional music's answer to Peter and the Wolf", Ross's composition will accompany a narration in Gaelic, translated by poet Aonghas MacNeacail from a children's short story in Scots by James Robertson. It is hoped that the Scots version can be performed at Celtic Connections next January.

A flurry of anniversaries includes a concert celebrating 25 years of Fis Rois and another (on top of Cairn Gorm, no less) marking Fis Sp's 21st birthday.Also celebrating a birthday, his 80th, is the renowned left-handed Lochaber fiddler Aonghas Grant, while the centenary of the birth of the magisterial Sorley MacLean will be marked by performances in Inverness Cathedral and at Skye's Sabhal Mr Ostaig of Hallaig, by the Inverness composer Stuart MacRae, inspired by one of MacLean's greatest poems.

Featured artists include the only Scottish dates of the American-Irish group Cherish the Ladies, as well as Karine Polwart and the Scots-Irish-Cape Breton band Outside Track, which will be in residence as the festival's "house band". Billed Gaelic singers include Karen Matheson, Kathleen MacInnes and the Campbells of Greepe.

There will also be a series of ceilidhs on various Hebridean islands, but the festival is not just about music this year, featuring a programme of Gaelic writers - with the support of the Gaelic Books Council - and sport.

The Camanachd Cup Final is played at Bught Park, Inverness on the festival's final Saturday, and shinty fans will be treated to music from Blas performers at half time.

It's a happy coincidence that both Cormack and Torquil MacLeod, chief operating officer at the Camanachd Association, want to see become an annual fixture.

• Blas runs from 9-17 September. For further information, see www.blas-festival.com and www.scotlandsislands.com