The Highland Council has announced details of a spectacular multicultural St Andrew’s Day celebration which will take place in Inverness next Thursday. (November 30th)

Scotland’s celebrations for St Andrew's Day 2006 will be jointly hosted by all six Scottish cities and involve thousands of young people across Scotland. Events will also be held in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling following the First Minister's pledge to raise awareness of and encourage involvement in celebration of St Andrew's Day.

Sponsored by the Scottish Executive, the Inverness event will consist of a nine hour music, dance, film and visual projection festival in Falcon Square with a “One Scotland. Many Cultures” theme.

Video Artist John McGeoch of Evanton based Arts in Motion has been commissioned to produce a film montage featuring the residents and the cultural diversity of modern Inverness, which will be projected on to the walls of Falcon Square. The montage will star pupils of Crown Primary School in Inverness and visitors to Falcon Square.

The Crown Primary School pupils have been chosen to star in the film to celebrate their success in winning the City’s Junior Highland Games and to recognise the warmth of the welcome that local youngsters have given to children from other countries who have moved to schools in the Highlands.

The school has pupils who have grown up speaking 15 other languages and the film which will be filmed on the eve of St Andrew’s day will be an exciting record of a vibrant day in the life of the school. Arrangements have been made for the giant eagle sculpture created by Highland based Sculptor Sam Barlow to be erected in the school playground and the children’s faces will be captured by a camera located in the eagle’s eye. The images will then be edited overnight ready for projection at the show the following day.

The event will also feature screenings of the Inverness Muslim Education Association’s Asian fashion show and this year’s City of Inverness Highland Games.


The event will start with a 3 hour live broadcast of Moray Firth Radio’s “Knoxy in the Afternoon” show commencing at 1pm starring Diane Knox who will be encouraging locals to come down to Falcon Square and get themselves filmed by Arts in Motion.

Host DJ Andi “Candoo” Stephen will then take over and Andi will have the job of attempting to play dance music from as many countries as possible throughout the evening. Appeals have been made to local ethnic community groups to spread the word that everyone is invited to bring their favourite CD’s along to the party and amongst the many countries already lined up to be heard on St Andrew’s day are Russia, Poland, Latvia. Lithuania and Chile. It will be interesting to see how many countries are represented when the International Juke Box closes at the end of the night.

St Andrew’s Night is of course all about Scotland and the music of Scotland will provide the heart of the show that will feature local band Schiehallion supported by youth bands Twist of Fate, Fade2Black and Deviate. The Inverness Traditional Music Programme’s TMC Folk, The Inverness Scottish Country Dancers and the Mean Feat Breakdance Team will also be performing.

Councillor Angus Dick, Vice Chairman of Inverness Area, Education, Culture and Sport Committee said

“The Scottish Executive challenged us to try and make the Inverness event as memorable as possible and with the support of the many of the members of the various communities who now call Inverness their home who have got involved, I think we have succeeded.

There is tremendous excitement building about this new St Andrew’s Day event and the “One Scotland. Many Cultures” theme has certainly captured the imagination of a lot of folk.”