On Wednesday of next week at Edinburgh International Conference Centre, the winners of the Arts and Business Scotland Awards 2015 will be revealed at a ceremony that has assumed a new shape since David Watt arrived as the organisation’s CEO in 2013. While still concerned with celebrating the mutually advantageous relationship between Scotland’s business community and the culture sector, the award categories are now Placemaking, People, Digital Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and International – although applicants can still submit their partnership to more than one of these. So it is that Glasgow’s La Chunky Studios’ support of the show Biding Time (Remix) in the Made in Scotland showcase at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, created by Tromolo Productions and featuring A Band Called Quinn, crops up in both the Digital Innovation and International categories.

If that association sounds rather more complex on paper than it probably was in practice, other nominations on the shortlist are altogether easier to grasp. Caledonian MacBrayne appears as a sole nominee in both the Placemaking and Entrepreneurship categories for CalMac Culture, an intiative that tempted people to use its west coast ferry services for reasons other than accessing the weather-dependent (for many folk) great outdoors. Starting with CalMac Culture Music, the company linked up with the HebCelt and Tiree festivals to sponsor a competition for singer-songwriters, whose final was held at Glasgow’s King Tut’s with mainstage slots at the festivals the prize at stake. Other festivals in Campbeltown and Inveraray have since come on board and CalMac Culture Gaelic then took the company to the Royal National Mod, while CalMac Culture Screen is a competition for aspirant film-makers. This Year of Architecture and Design will see the launch of CalMac Culture Art.

These awards, although coming to the end of the selection process at the start of 2016 actually celebrate partnerships that were a success in 2014, the year of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. The culture programme around the Games came to a spectacular conclusion in Pacific Basin on the south bank of the Clyde beside Glasgow Science Centre, which teamed up with Cryptic Productions in Glasgow for Sound to Sea. The spectacular performance involved traditional, hip-hop and classical musicians, aerial artists on the roof of the Science Centre, choreographed boating manoeuvres in which the Royal Navy was a participant, and lighting and pyrotechnics transforming the centre and its tower.

The well-established partnership between Glasgow Airport and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, which involved a conducting competition for an airport user last year, in 2014 was also marking the conclusion of the Games by inviting judo gold medallist Sarah Clark to direct the musicians in a performance of Flower of Scotland, the anthem the orchestra had recorded to accompany the appearance of winning Scots athletes on the podium of their own sports.

RSNO associate conductor Jean-Claude Picard also took his place at the front of the band with the RSNO Chorus in attendance for short programmes of sport-related and Scottish music to ensure that returning visitors’ experience of Glasgow ended on a high note.

While the RSNO/Glasgow Airport association is nominated in two categories, The National Theatre of Scotland has two distinct nominations in the People category. One is with the Scottish Power Foundation for Graham McLaren’s revival of Joe Corrie’s General Strike play In Time O’ Strife. Following Scottish Power’s association with the NTS on Glasgow Girls and Black Watch, the newly established Foundation’s backing of a production which began in the towns of the Fife coalfields and toured to Wales and England as well as across Scotland chimed with its community focus.

The NTS contribution to the Glasgow Games cultural programme came by its business partner more fortuitously, when it became apparent that Malin Marine were intent on purchasing the building the company intending making the venue for The Tin Forest ¬– the South Rotunda, also on the banks of the Clyde. Rather than making difficulties for the theatre-makers, the offshore engineering company put their lack of arts sponsorship experience to one side and helped develop the site for dramatic purposes before they moved in. Malin Marine staff not only attended the shows, some became front-of-house volunteers at what became a destination venue in the summer of 2014. As a business with no previous history of supporting the arts, the company’s involvement also attracted funding to the project in the form of a New Arts Sponsorship Grant.

“Our colleagues and their families had a great time and being part of such a high profile project in what was a great summer for Glasgow made our experience of being involved with the arts a very rewarding one for our business,” said Malin Marine’s John Macsween.

The Herald is media partner of the Arts and Business Scotland Awards 2015. The winners will be announced at Edinburgh International Conference Centre on the evening of Wednesday February 3.