BBC ALBA is to broadcast a world-wide Hogmanay Ceilidh from Stirling Castle from 11.30pm tomorrrow.

Hosts Cathy MacDonald and Tony Kearney present the celebrations of 2016 ending with the "very best in traditional music" in the setting of the Great Hall.

The house band for the evening will be fronted by singer Julie Fowlis, accompanied by Éamon Doorley, Duncan Chisholm, Calum Stewart and Tony Byrne, with the further cast of singers will including Fiona Kennedy, Scottish singer/songwriter Ross Wilson of the Blue Rose Code, and Sineag MacIntyre.

Cèilidh na Bliadhn' Ùire/Hogmanay Ceilidh is produced by Bees Nees Media for BBC ALBA and will be simulcast on BBC Radio nan Gàidheal (103.5-105FM) and worldwide.

bbc.co.uk/alba.

TWO YOUNG artists and designers have been selected for special mentoring, a £1,000 bursary plus the chance to take part in Spring Fling in Dumfries and Galloway.

The Emerge Young Artists Bursary Scheme is run by Upland CIC, which supports visual artists, makers and designers across the region and this year the bursaries have been awarded to Rosie Reid, a textile designer from Kirkcudbright, and Luke Fitch, a painter based in Corsock. Reid will be mentored by international textile artist and designer Morag Macpherson from Kirkcudbright.

Macpherson said: "Rosie is very talented and already highly accomplished. One of the things I’ll be helping her with is taking her designs and turning them into finished products.

“Mentorships like this can be extremely valuable as there are a lot of challenges in building a career in textile design, especially in a rural area like this. Dumfries and Galloway is great for the creative part, because its quiet and natural beauty feeds into your work, but the population is small so developing a customer base for a sustainable business means a lot of travel and really getting out there and presenting your work."

Spring Fling is an arts and crafts open studios event across Dumfries and Galloway and in 2017 it will take place May 27-29.

spring-fling.co.uk

DEREK Gripper and Amythyst Kiah are to play at the String Jam Club in Selkirk next year.

Gripper, a South Africa guitarist who recently played the Carnegie Hall in New York, plays on January 21, preceding appearances at Celtic Connections. Ms Kiah is a "a Southern Gothic, alt-country blues singer/songwriter" based out of Johnson City in Tennessee.

She draws heavily on Old Time music and has toured throughout the UK including major festivals such as the Southern Fried Festival in Perth, the Cambridge Folk Festival, Edinburgh Jazz Festival, and SummerTyne Americana Festival. She performs on February 11.

facebook.com/StringJamClub