ONE of Scotland's leading music venues is to re-open to the public on 8 December.
Aberdeen's Music Hall will re-open on that day, and will stage a series of 'Stepping In' events, including a performance by Travis frontman Fran Healy, who will lead the Music Hall community choir in a performance of the song ‘Sing.’
The doors will be opened to the public at 9.30am with free entry all day and a programme of performances.
The hall has been revamped in a £9m project.
Jane Spiers, chief Executive of Aberdeen Performing Arts, the charity behind the Music Hall project said: "We’re so excited at the prospect of stepping back into the hall and welcoming everyone through the doors.
"It’s been a labour of love and a complete privilege to play a part in the history of such a national treasure.
‘Stepping In’ is a celebration of all that makes the Music Hall great – and most of all it’s a celebration of people and communities in the North-east."
She added: "It’s been a hugely ambitious and complex project and what’s been achieved within total costs of £9m is incredible, thanks to a great team of committed professionals who believed in the project and have always gone the extra mile – our architects BDP, contractor Kier, project management Axiom and the amazing Aberdeen Performing Arts Team.”
The 200 year-old venue undergo extensive excavations below ground to create a new lower ground floor, creating space for a new performance studio, new creative learning studio, a new café bar, restaurant and re-located box office.
The works have also included significant excavations and interventions to improve access .
The Music Hall auditorium has been restored with new flooring, staging, seating, decoration.
The formal opening will take place the following weekend with two concerts, one by the BBC SSO and another by rock band Texas.
www.aberdeenperformingarts.com.
A NEW service for the promotion of Scottish books, writers, festivals and organisations has been launched, called Scottish Books International.
The manager of the new service, which has been launched by Publishing Scotland and the Edinburgh International Book Festival, funded by Creative Scotland, is Sasha de Buyl.
Mairi Kidd, the interim head of literature, languages and publishing at Creative Scotland, said: "This new role responds to the appetite within the literature sector for a strategic and co-ordinated approach to showcasing and championing Scotland’s writers, publishers and festivals overseas.
"Sasha brings huge experience in this area, having co-ordinated the literature strand of the Momentum international delegate programme, which brings together curators, funders, producers and programmers from all over the world to immerse themselves in Edinburgh’s unrivalled August Festivals season.
Ms de Buyl commented: "From our emergent voices to our established writers, Scotland’s writing has a depth and talent that has the potential to reach and connect with a large and diverse international audience.
“Our writers, publishers, literary organisations and festivals boast world leaders among their ranks, and this role will help work together to achieve the strongest possible impact with our international programmes going forward.”
The new service will commence on 3 December 2018.
Its work will "focus on the development of a strategic plan for international activity, identifying and progressing opportunities for increased visibility for writers, publishers, festivals and organisations; identifying potential income sources, and building relationships with key partners in Scotland and overseas."
www.publishingscotland.org
TWO rare armchairs designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh are to be auctioned in Edinburgh at the end of October.
The chairs were designed for Miss Cranston's Argyle Street Tea Rooms in Glasgow.
The oak armchairs, valued at £30,000-£50,000 each, were designed for the men’s Billiards & Smoking Rooms, which occupied the building’s top two floors above the tea and luncheon rooms.
They will be on sale by Lyon and Turnbull in their Decorative Arts: Design since 1860 auction on the 31 October in Edinburgh.
The Argyle Street Tea Rooms closed in 1920, and much of the furniture was dispersed.
These armchairs came into the possession of established Glasgow restauranteur William Smith, whose daughter passed them onto the current owner as a gift.
John Mackie, director and specialist at Lyon and Turnbull said: “The robust construction of these chairs has helped them withstand many years of use, however it is their beautiful and functional design, anticipating 20th century Modernist ethos, which has stood the test of time.”
www.lyonandturnbull.com
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