Published: 15 Sep 2015
(Image Credit: In My Fathers Words - Angus Peter Campbell - Photo: Viktoria Begg)
Creative Scotland is absolutely committed to supporting traditional arts in Scotland as is clearly evidenced by the funding awards that we make through Open Project Funding, Regular Funding and through Targeted Funding.
Since Open Project Funding was launched in October 2014, we have awarded funding of £1.4m to individuals, organisations and projects whose work falls within the traditional arts, including Gaelic and Scots. This includes writers, musicians, theatre makers, festivals and creative organisations across Scotland, such as major events like Heb Celt Festival and the Celtic Media Festival, arts organisations such as Proiseact nan Ealan, through to musicians such as Ross Ainslie and Breabach and writers such as Paraig MacNeil. This funding is a significant proportion of the £8.5m total funding awarded so far through the Open Project route. See full details on all our Open Project Funding awards.
Our portfolio of Regularly Funded Organisations, who receive funding over a period of three years, consists of many organisations who are active in the traditional arts, Gaelic and Scots or wholly focussed on this area of creative work. This includes TRACS (Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland) including The Scottish Storytelling Centre, Feisean nan Gaidheal, An Lanntair, Taigh Chearsabhagh Trust, The Gaelic Books Council, The National Piping Centre, Feis Rois, Celtic Connections, Hands up for Trad, the Scottish Poetry Library and a host of other organisations whose work supports traditional artists working across Scotland.
In addition to this extensive support, we have also devolved £35k funding to Fèisean nan Gàidheal to deliver TASGADH, the Traditional Arts Small Grants Fund which offers grants of up of £1,000 to organisations and individuals involved in Scottish Traditional Arts to support them to create, perform, tour and showcase work. Individuals and organisations are also able to apply to our Open Project Fund which has no set deadline.
We also support traditional musicians to showcase their work internationally through our highly successful Showcase Scotland initiative at Celtic Connections and at the Cambridge Folk Festival as well as the world music showcase WOMEX. Traditional music is also supported through the Youth Music Initiative.
We support Gaelic language through the commitments set out in our Gaelic Language Plan and we support Scots through the commitments set out in our recently published Scots Language Policy, including the appointment of Scotland’s first Scots Scriever in partnership with the National Library of Scotland.
All of this work is further supported by the Traditional Arts Working Group which brings together staff from Creative Scotland and representatives from traditional arts organisations in order to champion the traditional arts and to act as advocates both in Scotland and internationally.
Our support for traditional arts in Scotland, like our support for all aspects of arts and creativity, is unwavering and this area of rich creative excellence continues to be an important part of cultural life in Scotland and of how we present ourselves to the world.
