Your story

Providing opportunities to play and enjoy live music around Sutherland.

Group introduction

Sutherland Sessions exists to encourage and support the culture of live music in East & Central Sutherland. We provide opportunities for young and local musicians to play concerts with well-known professional musicians from Scotland's folk and traditional music scene.

We started as a committee of 3 people in spring 2016 and now have 96 members who are regularly involved in concerts and sessions. Our committee now includes 2 young people developing careers in the music sector.

Our concerts and sessions are social events which bring the communities of this sparsely-populated area together.

We have featured many of the area's young and talented musicians at concerts and leading informal sessions.

How would this funding have an impact on your community?

Being a remote area with a small population means that it is expensive to bring musicians here to play concerts and run masterclasses.
Funding would be incredibly helpful in supporting the costs of putting on events and workshops with musicians from across Scotland.

This will support the development of the pool of musical talent in the area -
benefiting the communities of the area in the future - as bands for concerts, ceilidhs and other community events.

It was also support the development of tourism in the area, supporting the North Coast 500, which has seen an increase in visitors to the area, without, as yet, a significant increase in events for visitors to enjoy.

Our largest events to date have brought 125-130 people together. We aim to run 12 events each year, reaching around 1000 people.

With this funding, we will be able to provide more opportunities for young local musicians to play and gain performance experience with their musical inspirations.

"Myra Morrison (Chair of Sutherland Sessions) said "This funding is a great help in our work supporting the development of live music in Sutherland."

For more information visit:

www.sutherlandsessions.org