A CENTENARY celebration of an influential Scots filmmaker and poet officially begins next month.

The Margaret Tait 100 (MT100) celebration includes screenings, exhibitions, workshops, readings, new publishing, and commissioning opportunities for artists working with film.

It is organised by LUX Scotland, the University of Stirling and the Pier Arts Centre in Orkney, and funded by Creative Scotland.

The year-long programme of events will showcase the work of Margaret Tait, an Orcadian artist acknowledged as one of the nation’s most innovative independent filmmakers.

During her lifetime, Tait produced a large body of work, including more than 30 short experimental films, which she referred to as her ‘film poems’.

Dr Sarah Neely, of the University of Stirling, said: “2018 marks the centenary of Tait’s birth and provides an opportunity to give attention to the full range of her work, drawing out aspects of Tait’s archive that are sometimes overlooked.”

The centenary celebrations will be launched in Edinburgh with the opening of an exhibition at Demarco Archive Exhibitions at Summerhall in early November.

There will be a touring ‘pilgrimage’ exhibition, from Edinburgh to Orkney, via Inverness Film Festival and Portgower, in Sutherland, northeast Scotland, where Tait lived and worked in the 1960s.

It will conclude with a final commemorative screening event, held on Rose Street, Edinburgh, in November 2019, when a blue plaque will be installed outside of 91 Rose Street, the site of Tait’s studio in the 1950s and 60s.

MT100 includes screenings of a new digital restoration of Blue Black Permanent (1992), undertaken by the British Film Institute, as well Where I Am is Here: Margaret Tait at 100, a touring programme of new HD scans of some of Tait’s key films, organised by LUX.

MT100 will also involve 10 new short film commissions, responding to Tait’s legacy: five commissions will be from established artists, and the remaining five will be drawn from an open call process. The first commissioned artist is Jarman Award-winner and Turner Prize-nominated artist, filmmaker, and musician, Luke Fowler.

Tait was born on Orkney in 1918, and died on Orkney in 1999. She attended boarding school in Edinburgh, before studying Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. During the Second World War, she served at home and abroad with the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Tait’s first film was made in 1951 and her last completed in 1998.

She also published three books of poetry and two of short stories between 1959 and 1960.

www.margarettait100.com.

THE county's oldest continuously operational vocal ensemble celebrates its 175th birthday today (31 October) by presenting excerpts from Handel’s Messiah.

Members of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) Chorus, formerly the Glasgow Choral Union, will perform a free event to evening shoppers at Princes Square Shopping Centre, Buchanan Street from 6.00pm.

Glasgow Choral Union was formed in 1843 to perform the Scottish premiere of Handel’s Messiah.

The Choral Union’s committee formulated its ambition at a gathering at a coffee shop on Argyle Street (now Waterstone’s Bookshop).

It recruited freelance orchestral musicians for the Scottish premiere of Handel’s oratorio, the group eventually coalescing to form the Scottish Orchestra, precursor to the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

The RSNO Chorus has been led by Chorus Director Gregory Batsleer since 2015.

It will join its orchestra to continue the anniversary celebrations the following week, with performances of Poulenc’s Gloria, conducted by newly-appointed Music Director Thomas Søndergård, at

Perth Concert Hall on 8 November, the Usher Hall, Edinburgh on 9 November, and at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on 10 November.

www.rsno.org.uk.

THE Scottish based writer Kapka Kassabova has been announced as the winner of the British Academy’s 6th Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding 2018, for her book Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe.

The book is an "exploration of the border zone between Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece".

Kassabova, was born in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1973.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, she emigrated with her family to New Zealand in 1992, where she studied French and Russian Literature at university.

In 2005 she moved to Edinburgh and now lives in the Scottish Highlands. She is a writer of poetry, fiction and narrative non-fiction.

The £25,000 prize was presented by Chair of the jury and Foreign Secretary of the British Academy, Professor Ash Amin CBE FBA, at a ceremony at the British Academy in central London.

Commenting on behalf of the jury he said: "Kapka Kassabova has written an extraordinary book, an important contribution to the urgent debate about global cultural understanding.

"Border has an original, compelling narrative which explores the notion of the border, not just as a frontier but as a psychological and cultural dynamic. The book is a description of a meeting place between past and present, peoples, culture and nature, written in a mesmerising style, peopled with vivid characters and full of sharply drawn encounters. Border invests the theme of cultural understanding with a magical quality, mixing observation, biography and lyricism.”

The British Academy’s international prize was established in 2013, to reward and celebrate the best works of non-fiction that "demonstrate rigour and originality."

The last three winners were Timothy Garton Ash for Free Speech (2017), Professor Carole Hillenbrand for Islam: A New Historical Introduction (2016), and Dr Neil MacGregor for A History of the World in 100 Objects and Germany: Memories of a Nation (2015).

www. kapka-kassabova.net