The St Magnus International Festival is an annual, week-long arts festival which takes place at midsummer on the islands of Orkney, off the north coast of mainland Scotland.
The St Magnus International Festival is an annual, week-long arts festival which takes place at midsummer on the islands of Orkney, off the north coast of mainland Scotland.
The festival was founded in 1977 by a group including the composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, who was a resident of Orkney, and the Orcadian poet George Mackay Brown. The artistic director is Alasdair Nicolson, who succeeded Glenys Hughes in 2010. The artistic programme consists mainly of music alongside drama, dance, literature and the visual arts, and is managed by a small staff and many local volunteers, who also offer accommodation for visiting artists.
Artists who have appeared at the festival include Vladimir Ashkenazy, Nicola Benedetti, Colin Currie, Evelyn Glennie, John Harle, Angela Hewitt, Steven Isserlis, Paul Lewis, John Lill, Tasmin Little, Joanna MacGregor, Lisa Milne, Steven Osborne and Isaac Stern. Many orchestras and ensembles have visited the festival both from Scotland and England.
Festival poets have included Carol Ann Duffy, John Gallas, Seamus Heaney, Jackie Kay, Gwyneth Lewis, Liz Lochhead and Andrew Motion. The National Theatre of Scotland also appeared at the festival in 2007.
The St Magnus Festival has commissioned music from composers including James MacMillan, Judith Weir, Simon Holt, Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, Thea Musgrave, Sally Beamish, Edward McGuire, William Sweeney, Gordon McPherson and David Horne. Premières of works by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies have included works written in collaboration with or inspired by the work of the Orcadian writer George Mackay Brown.
Visual arts, drama and dance projects have also been commissioned for the festival, including a trio of original plays by Alan Plater. [1]
Education and community projects have included many residents of Orkney. The St Magnus Festival Chorus includes around 130 singers from all parts of the archipelago. The festival prides itself on its involvement with the local community and the support provided by local residents.
The Festival on Tour project has visited Orkney's outer islands to give workshops and performances for schools and communities. Beginning in 2006, a type of fringe festival called MagFest [2] has included late-night shows, circus, cabaret, comedy, music and children's events. Orkney Conducting Course, St Magnus Composers' Course, a Writers' Course and, from 2012, a Singers' Course also run alongside the festival.
The conductors' and composers' courses were not held in 2016, the 40th anniversary of the festival. The director, Alasdair Nicolson, attributed this to a lack of funding. [3]
Orkney, also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north of the coast of Caithness and has about 70 islands, of which 20 are inhabited. The largest island, the Mainland, has an area of 523 square kilometres (202 sq mi), making it the sixth-largest Scottish island and the tenth-largest island in the British Isles. Orkney's largest settlement, and also its administrative centre, is Kirkwall.
Kirkwall is the largest town in Orkney, an archipelago to the north of mainland Scotland.
Saint Magnus Erlendsson, Earl of Orkney, sometimes known as Magnus the Martyr, was Earl of Orkney from 1106 to about 1117.
Stromness is the second-most populous town in Orkney, Scotland. It is in the southwestern part of Mainland Orkney. It is a burgh with a parish around the outside with the town of Stromness as its capital.
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was an English composer and conductor, who in 2004 was made Master of the Queen's Music.
George Mackay Brown was a Scottish poet, author and dramatist with a distinctly Orcadian character. He is widely regarded as one of the great Scottish poets of the 20th century.
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) is an Edinburgh-based UK chamber orchestra. One of Scotland's five National Performing Arts Companies, the SCO performs throughout Scotland, including annual tours of the Scottish Highlands and Islands and South of Scotland. The SCO appears regularly at the Edinburgh, East Neuk, St Magnus and Aldeburgh Festivals and The Proms. The SCO's international touring receives support from the Scottish Government. The SCO rehearses mainly at Edinburgh's Queen's Hall.
Humans have inhabited Orkney, an archipelago in the north of Scotland, for about 8,800 years: Archeological evidence dates from Mesolithic times. Scandinavian clans dominated the area from the 8th century CE, using the islands as a base for further incursions. In the late 14th century the archipelago became part of Scotland.
St Magnus Cathedral dominates the skyline of Kirkwall, the main town of Orkney, a group of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. It is the oldest cathedral in Scotland, and the most northerly cathedral in the United Kingdom, a fine example of Romanesque architecture built for the bishops of Orkney when the islands were ruled by the Norse Earls of Orkney. It is owned not by the church, but by the burgh of Kirkwall as a result of an act of King James III of Scotland following Orkney's annexation by the Scottish Crown in 1468. It has its own dungeon.
Orcadians, also known as Orkneymen, are an ethnic group native to the Orkney Islands, who speak an Orcadian dialect of the Scots language, a West Germanic language, and share a common history, culture and ancestry. Speaking Norn, a native North Germanic language into the 19th or 20th century, Orcadians descend significantly from North Germanic peoples, with around a third of their ancestry derived from Scandinavia, including a majority of their patrilineal line. According to anthropological study, the Orcadian ethnic composition is similar to that of Icelandic people; a comparable islander ethnicity of North Germanic origin.
The Martyrdom of St Magnus is a chamber opera in one act by the British composer Peter Maxwell Davies. The libretto, by Davies himself, is based on the novel Magnus by George Mackay Brown. The opera was first performed in St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, Orkney on 18 June 1977.
Magnus is a novel by the Orcadian author George Mackay Brown. His second novel, it was published in 1973. it is a fictional account of the life and execution of the twelfth century Saint, Magnus Erlendsson, Earl of Orkney.
The Yellow Cake Revue is a musical composition for piano and voice. Peter Maxwell Davies composed the piece in 1980. He first performed it at the Stromness Hotel, in Stromness, Orkney, as part of the 1980 St Magnus Festival—a summer arts festival that he co-founded in 1977. English actress Eleanor Bron recited the spoken word portions for the debut performance.
The Symphony No. 6 by Peter Maxwell Davies was composed in Hoy during the first half of 1996, and was premiered on 22 June of the same year in the Phoenix Cinema, Kirkwall, as part of the twentieth St Magnus Festival, Orkney, by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the composer. The work was written with specific members of the RPO in mind, and is dedicated to the memory of the poet George Mackay Brown, who died on the day the symphony was completed.
The Symphony No. 7 by Peter Maxwell Davies was composed in 2000. It was written for and dedicated to the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, by whom it was premiered on 19 June 2000 at the St Magnus Festival, in the Pickaquoy Centre, Kirkwall, Orkney, conducted by the composer.
Events from the year 1977 in Scotland.
The Violin Concerto No. 1 is the first violin concerto by the British composer Peter Maxwell Davies. It was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to commemorate the ensemble's 40th anniversary. The work was completed in 1985 and first performed at the St Magnus Festival by the violinist Isaac Stern and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by André Previn on 21 June 1986. The piece is dedicated to Isaac Stern.
Gun Margoth Moberg was a Swedish photographer and artist who worked in Scotland. Her work includes photographs featuring the Orkney, Shetland, and Faroe Islands.
Marjorie Linklater was a Scottish campaigner for the arts and environment on the island of Orkney. She gave up acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to get involved in conservation, education, and health matters as a county councillor for Ross and Cromarty County Council. In 1975, Linklater was elected chairman of the Orkney Heritage Society, devoting herself to campaigning for the arts environment, local heritage, and politics. She successfully opposed the mining of uranium and the dumping of nuclear waste off Orkney's west coast and was a founding member of the St Magnus Festival. The Orkney Heritage Society named a senior school award in Linklater's honour following her death.
Rackwick is a small coastal crofting township in the north west of the island of Hoy in Orkney, Scotland.
