"MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS" SEPTEMBER EVENTS

1st September 2014

Highland culture in many different forms, Highland family tree research, Macbeth, traditional Highland music, traditional Highland stories, and the things which people took with them when they left the Highlands are all themes of September's "My heart’s in the Highlands" events in the Highland and Moray Council areas.

The National Trust for Scotland’s Culloden Battlefield and Visitor Centre, the Highland Archive Centre in Inverness, the Falconer Museum in Forres, Cawdor Castle, Historylinks in Dornoch, and Portree Library will all be hosting events during September encouraging local people and visitors to explore and celebrate what makes the Highland special to them.
The year-long “Needed on a Journey” roving Homecoming exhibition reaches the next stops on its travels this month, opening at the Highland Archive Centre, Inverness, on Monday 1st September till Monday 29th September; Historylinks, Dornoch from Wednesday 3rd September to Monday 29th September; and Portree Library from Monday 1st September till Monday 29th September. The exhibition, which is part of the “My heart’s in the Highlands” Homecoming 2014 events programme, has been put together by High Life Highland. It is visiting various locations around the Highlands and exploring what those who left the Highlands took with them, from physical objects to things people carried in their minds such as stories, songs and recipes. To complement the exhibition, a number of special events will be taking place in Inverness, Dornoch and Portree during September (please see below for details).
In addition, there will be a number of “one-off” “My heart’s in the Highlands” events, including:
· NTS Culloden Battlefield and Visitor Centre will be holding the Culloden Homecoming event on Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th September, 11am-4pm. Organised in partnership with museums and heritage sites from across the Highland and Moray Council areas and with the involvement of the Blas Festival and a range of local choirs, dancers, shinty players and pipers, this event celebrates the culture of the Highlands in its many different forms. Look out for a Jacobite camp, traditional and more modern Highland music (including BBC Radio 2 “young folk” award winners, the Mischa Macphearson Trio, as well as Hò-rò, the local young and energetic Scottish trad/folk trio from Inverness), shinty demonstration matches, performances by local school choirs, demonstrations of traditional crafts, a pipers’ relay at the Memorial Cairn on the Battlefield, storytelling, come-and-try sessions with traditional musical instruments, a Highland clan and family history area, and lots of different children’s activities.

· the Highland Archive Centre in Inverness will be running family history sessions, every Wednesday in September. These sessions have been specially designed for the Year of Homecoming 2014 by the expert Family Historian from the Highland Archive Service to help local people and visitors discover what their roots are and how to find out about their ancestors. These events complement the “Needed on a Journey” roving Homecoming exhibition which will be in the Highland Archive Centre Monday 1st September- Monday 29th September inclusive.

· Portree Library will also be hosting a special Homecoming 2014 family history session for locals and visitors led by an expert from the Highland Archive Service on Tuesday 9th September.

· Historylinks, Dornoch will be launching its storymap on Thursday 11th September 2014. The storymap is the result of workshops held locally with storyteller, Bob Pegg, and contains references to some fascinating local tales including the legend of the Gizzen Briggs and the burning of the last ‘witch’ in Scotland.

· The Falconer Museum in Forres, will be hosting a “Making MacBeth” exhibition from Wednesday 24th September to Wednesday 8th October (Mon – Sat, 10am–5pm). In partnership with Findhorn Bay Arts Festival, the Museum is thrilled to be borrowing a copy of The Holingshed Chronicles from the University of Edinburgh. This is a 16th century manuscript that authors such as Shakespeare, Marlowe and Spenser, used as a historic inspiration. The book itself cannot be touched and explored by the public so the Museum, inspired by the beautiful woodcut illustrations in the Chronicles, has instead worked with an artist and local primary school children to produce their own woodcut style (Styrofoam) printed banners which will form the back-drop to the exhibition.

· At Cawdor Castle on Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st September, “My heart’s in the Highlands” is sponsoring the young traditional musicians of the Caledonian Ceilidh Trail to play Highland music with a food and drink theme at the popular “Living Food” Festival taking place at the Castle that weekend.

Lorna Cruickshank, chair of the “My heart’s in the Highlands” steering group said: “This is a busy month for “My Heart’s in the Highlands, with a fantastic range of events to enjoy.”

For further details of Septembers’s events and the many other “Heart” events happening in the Highlands and Moray this year, please visit www.hearthighland.org.