Performances

Music and marine life come together in Message in a Bottle, with images and animation, around the theme of the sea and the life within it. Elsewhere in the programme, the old selkie legend provides an image of transformation, needed today to seek ways of creatively transforming the mass of litter on beaches into something beautiful.

KIRKWALL CITY PIPE BAND

September 5 → 7:00 pm ─ 7:30 pm

with a special Festival presentation

SELKIES, SHIPWRECKS, SONGS AND STORIES

September 5 → 9:00 pm ─ 9:30 pm

Orkney storyteller Tom Muir tells a selkie story from North Ronaldsay. Katarina Juvančič sings The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry, accompanied by guitarist Dejan Lapanja, and then a song in similar mood about a Slovenian girl taken away by a water-sprite. Anne Sinclair from Fair Isle describes some of the island’s shipwrecks and introduces a song from the group Fridarey.

THE SELKIE’S NEW CLOTHES

September 5 → 9:30 pm ─ 9:45 pm

The old selkie story found in Orkney and elsewhere around the coast of the British Isles tells of shapeshifting between the human and natural worlds, in the uncertain boundary world of the shore. This performance piece by artist Selena S Kuzman, specially created for the Year of Coasts and Waters, merges in a poetic way the folk stories of the selkie people with the transformation of waste materials and our deep connection with the sea and the land.

SCIENCE FESTIVAL SERVICE

September 6 → 10:00 am ─ 10:30 am

Words, music and images from St Magnus Cathedral for a Sunday morning, with Rev. Fraser Macnaughton and the Cathedral Choir and organ.

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

September 6 → 8:30 pm ─ 9:15 pm

Music inspired by the sea, presented by its composer, Lochaber musician Ingrid Henderson, in conversation with the head of NatureScot’s marine unit, Katy Gillham. The music was created for a new music and audiovisual show for the Year of Coasts and Waters. Mixing newly crafted music and song with ancient Gaelic melodies and powerful imagery and animation, it explores themes of ocean currents, migration and environmental impact as well as celebrating the rich marine life around us and the deep cultural connection of coastal communities to the sea. Music by Ingrid Henderson (harp/fiddle/vocals), Anna Massie (guitar/fiddle), Megan Henderson (fiddle/vocals/piano) and Conal McDonagh (Irish pipes/whistle).