A MEMORIAL to the historic fiddler Niel Gow is to be unveiled at the festival named after him in 2020.

The Niel Gow Festival Society hope to reveal the life-size bronze on 22 March next year, with Scottish artist David Annand having been commissioned to undertake the work.

However, the society is still seeking donations to the fund that will pay for the new memorial.

Niel Gow was born in Strathbraan on 22nd March 1727 and grew up in the village of Inver, by Dunkeld. He died in 1807.

The Niel Gow Festival began in 2004.

The festival is a weekend of recitals, concerts and workshops, presented by some of the finest fiddle players from Scotland and beyond, in celebration of the life and works of one of "the most significant yet often overlooked figures in the history of Scotland’s music."

The exact spot for the statue has yet to be confirmed, but the area near the Cross in Dunkeld is a favoured location.

In 2018, the Niel Gow Festival Society commissioned Annand to undertake the work.

Based near Cupar, Fife, he is the artist behind sculptures of significant public figures, including Robert Fergusson, Jim Clark, Rory Gallagher, and Jimmy Shand.

He has already completed a statue which has been used to make the mould from which the bronze statue will ultimately be cast.

Donations from private individuals, profits from the Niel Gow Festival plus income from the sale of an album recorded on the actual fiddle which was Gow’s favourite have generated over half the costs, but fund raising continues.

www.niel-gow.co.uk

THE artist Alasdair Wallace is to stage his first solo show in Glasgow for more than twenty years.

Oscillate Vacillate, Orbit and Revolve will be at the Glasgow Print Studio from July 7 to 28.

Wallace grew up in Drumchapel.

The Studio said in a statement: "These edge lands on the city’s rural and urban fringe have influenced the artist and his attitude to landscape remains coloured by childhood explorations of what seemed like a wilderness.

"Below the Glasgow Airport flight path he and his friends would bunk-off school and follow the nearby burn upstream.

"Amidst the occasional burnt-out car and shopping trolley, they would encounter ideal worlds for childish imaginations to inhabit. An Arcadia in microcosm."

www.gpsart.co.uk

THE award-winning Glasgow-based pianist Fergus McCreadie’s trio has been invited to appear at the world-famous London jazz club Ronnie Scott’s International Piano Trio Festival on August 3.

Twenty-one-year-old McCreadie, who graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s jazz course last June and won the Best Instrumentalist title at the Scottish Jazz Awards 2018.

His trio recently toured Norway, Sweden, Estonia and Lithuania successfully as well as playing concerts in England and Scotland. This will be his third visit to Ronnie Scott’s this year following an appearance there in January and May.

McCreadie’s trio has concerts lined up at the upcoming Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stockholm jazz festivals and at the Edinburgh Fringe and before that the group will open for saxophonist Tommy Smith, in his concert with pianist Brian Kellock and Gaelic singer Kathleen MacInnes, at the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh on Thursday, June 13 as part of the venue’s 40th anniversary programme.

www.fergusmccreadie.co.uk