|
 The
first ever book to be published on the St Magnus Festival is now widely
available.
St Magnus Festival, A Celebration explores
the colourful life of Orkney's unique midsummer arts festival
and features detailed interviews and contributions from the founders,
international musicians and performers, poets, journalists, organisers
and back stage crews.
The book looks back over the past 25 years since
the festival was created in 1977 and crystal ball gazes into the
future to find out where this special event is going. But A Celebration also reflects the fun side of the festival with many amusing and
happy anecdotes, including naked dancing by musicians at the mystical
Ring of Brodgar!
It was a chance meeting between the Orcadian
poet, George Mackay Brown, and London-based composer, Peter Maxwell
Davies, in the beautiful surroundings of Rackwick Bay that led
to Max making his home on the island of Hoy.
The first seeds of an Orkney music festival
were about to be sown.
 |
|
The first meeting of the Orcadian poet George
Mackay Brown and the composer Peter Maxwell Davies (left)
at Rackwick, Hoy.
|
The idea of a musical celebration in Orkney was nurtured and
fed (with homebrew amongst other things!) during lengthy early
meetings in Archie and Elizabeth Bevan's hospitable home in Stromness.
A local music teacher, Norman Mitchell became
interested, but was it possible?
Was it credible to pioneer a classical music
and arts festival in far-flung Orkney?
Who would come?
How would it be financed, the local council
didn't seem interested?
What if it was a flop?
But in 1977 the St Magnus Festival was born
after seemingly insurmountable obstacles of all shapes and sizes
were scaled, bypassed, or removed altogether by careful and sensitive
negotiation.
A Celebration is the first detailed account
of how the festival was created and sustained. Dozens of international
stars tell of their St Magnus Festival experiences: the joys,
the tears, the frustrations and the controversies.
And staunch festival followers tell why the
event is a 'must be there' for them year on year, regardless of
cost (and weather!).
Read
Miscellaneous Quotes from the Book
|
