Photo of the week

P1050487
Originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/rob-cairns/

Festival Parade, 2005. Photo: Rob Cairns

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Scottish Youth Theatre presents Geordie

AIYF are proud to be presenting Geordie - A new musical for Scotland, at the Festival.

Geordie tells the story of a boy from the Highlands who, in the face of adversity, overcomes his weaknesses to become a champion athlete and a young man to make Scotland, his mum and of course Jean back home, very proud. A tale of personal triumph with a distinctly Scottish flavour, this heart-warming musical story is adapted for the stage by David Cosgrove and Stuart Thomas, directed by Mary McCluskey and has been developed by members of SYT Productions, the youth theatre’s high profile performance group. This production was premiered in New York, as part of the Tartan Week 2006.

Special price tickets for families are available.

http://www.aiyf.org/2008_theatre.htm

Photo of the week

Kutapira (AIYF) 7
Originally uploaded by longarmscotland

Kutapira at the Turriff Show, part of Festival 2007. Photo: Adrian Law

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Marketing Opportunities at AIYF

The Festival has a wide range of opportunities to suit all types of organisation and budgets, reaching a diverse audience groups, including web, direct mail and email, including:
Advert in main Festival programme
Flyering opportunities, at events, in our programme, mailshots to list
Email - inclusion in our monthly e-newsletter
IInclusion in information packs for participants and delegates

Check our website for a list of marketing options (http://www.aiyf.org/sponsorship_marketing.htm) We will also be selling advertising space on our website and are happy to offer space to local arts organisations / events at a significant discount.

Photo of the week

Aberdeen International Youth Festival 2005
Originally uploaded by Jennifer K Phillips

See more festival photos on flickr - why not add yours to our group and be featured as our photo of the week?

http://www.flickr.com/groups/aiyf/pool/

New initiative announced for festival 2008

Festival in the City
Sunday 3 August, 1 - 4pm
Free performances across Aberdeen City Centre.

One of the new initiatives for Festival 2008 will be our Festival in the City day. The Festival will bring performances from the International and Scottish youth acts to sites across the City Centre including open air venues and Union Terrace Gardens. A fun day packed with a wide range of free dance, music and street theatre events in the city centre.

(photo - Lucy Davies)

New member of staff!

We are pleased to announce that Ruth McMillan will be joining the Festival as part time Administrator from the middle of March. Ruth has worked in broadcasting, as an opera agent as well as freelance for festival's including Rock Ness and the Tartan Heart Festival.

Ceol Mor gig a great success!

Review By Fiona Mackenzie at http://www.hi-arts.co.uk/:

FIONA MACKENZIE checks out the next generation of Scottish traditional music talent IMAGINE a younger version of The Unusual Suspects, say 25+ strong, mix in some of Harris Playfair’s commitment and musical passion, add a few exciting new commissions from Corrina Hewat, Dave Milligan and Aidan O’Rourke, and you have ‘Ceòl Mòr’ ...

An eventual by-product of the Splore event in Aberdeen and directed by Dave Francis, this is a large scale Youth Folk Orchestra, although right from the initial bars you’d be fooled into thinking it was more of a rock and brass orchestra, with some fiddles and clarsach along the way too. Donald Shaw’s ‘Harvest’ has set the pace for youth projects in the last few years at Celtic Connections, and it is encouraging that more exciting large-scale projects such as this are emerging to fill the gap for many young musicians who find themselves perhaps in between Fèisean and going professional. Encouraging, too, to see that the vocal aspect of the piece was not all left up to the female of the species. The commitment and enjoyment of the participants was hugely encouraging for the future of ‘traditional’ music.

Three new commissions were performed alongside some of Playfair’s arrangements, including Hewat’s vocal arrangement ‘Boy Fae Kelso’ and Milligan’s’ How did we get to here?’ Aidan O’Rourke’s magical piece will surely become a staple of the repertoire for large groups now. Solo opportunities for both vocalists and instrumentalists were afforded across the board, allowing each section of the ‘orchestra’ to shine at various points in the programme. The brass section lifted the arrangements out of the trad genre and into one all of its own at times, a sort of ‘jazzitional’, for want of a better word. The audience were baying for more. Great potential here for future development and plaudits to the directors for the logistical problems a project such as this must present.

Ceol Mor on Bebo:

http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=4528795374

Ceol Mor to play at Celtic Connections

Saturday 26th January 2008, 1.00pm
The Glasgow Royal Concert Hall : Strathclyde Suite

Ceol Mor will be playing at Celtic Connections alongside the six finalists from 2007's Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year competition.

http://www.celticconnections.com/whatson/event/68481

Aberdeen International Youth Festival and our staff and participants have been racking up the awards

Congratulations to everyone!

Arts and Business Award
Aberdeen International Youth Festival and Balmoral Group were awarded a commendation in the Arts, Business & Young People category, at the Arts & Business Scottish Awards 2007.The commendation was for establishing Grampian Youth Orchestra - a thriving youth orchestra for the North-East supported by local authorities, schools, universities and colleges, linking schools music with the National Youth Orchestra, playing a vital role in music-making for local young people and achieving international recognition. http://www.gyo.org.uk/

This is the second award AIYF has received from Arts & Business. In 2006 we were awarded a commendation in the Arts & Kids category for our long partnership with Shell.

BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician 2008
James Duncan MacKenzie from the Isle of Lewis and Amy Lord from Dunblane are amongst the 6 finalists in the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician 2008.James is a member of Ceol Mor, the AIYF's Traditional Music Big Band, who played at the Woodend Barn and Aberdeen Music Hall at the 2007 Festival. Amy took part in the Splore, Traditional Music Summer School in 2002 and 2003.The finals will be held during Celtic Connections in Glasgow in January, and previous winners include Gillian Frame, Emily Smith and Anna Massie. Good Luck James and Amy!

Ian Watt, Classical Star
Congratulations to Ian Watt who beat hundreds of contestants to make it to the final three at the BBC's new Classical Star. Ian played at the Blue Lamp with David Buckingham during Festival 2007 and also gave outstanding solo performances at the Music Hall and with Grampian Youth Orchestra.Eighteen candidates were shortlisted from hundreds of young hopefuls, all of whom were aged between 12 and 19 and had reached at least grade eight in their chosen instrument. The best nine candidates were then selected to attend the Music Academy and each week the contestants had to convince the panel of expert judges that they have the commitment and charisma to become a star.Ian, along with fellow Scot, Karen Geoghegan, made it all the way to the live finals on 24 October at LSO St Luke's. Well done!

and finally..
Stephen Stenning, former Chief Executive of AIYF, won the Evening Express Aberdeen's Champion Award for Tourism Ambassador, for his work at the Festival , bringing up to 1000 young people every year to Aberdeen. He was presented with his award by fellow Festival alumni Cameron Stout, in a star-studded ceremony at the AECC.

More Staff news!

Ross Brechin, Marketing Intern for the 2007 Festival, has been made the Marketing Co-ordinator for Aberdeen Universtiy Student's Union.

Ben Torrie, who was the Festival's Box Office and Front of House Manager for Festival 2004, 2005 and 2006 is now Sales Manager at Aberdeen Performing Arts, and Andrew Youngson, who was the Festival's Marketing Intern in 2006, is now Sponsorship & Promotions Executive at Northsound Radio.

The Festival internships are a great way to gain valuable work experience. We offer internships in marketing, arts administration and Box Office liaison. For more information about these or other summer vacancies at AIYF please visit our website or contact General Manager, Jennifer Phillips on jenny@aiyf.org

AIYF announces new Chief Executive

Aberdeen International Youth Festival today announces it's new Chief Executive, Stewart Aitken, who will join the organisation in mid November.

Stewart joins the Festival from Wigan Pier Theatre Company where he was the Artistic Director. He was born and brought up in Dunfermline, where he developed his love of acting as The Carnegie Youth Theatre and Burntisland Youth Theatre, before going on to study at Queen Margaret College in Edinburgh.

Stewart has worked for a number of arts organisations, including Purves Puppets and First Base Theatre Company, as well as acting with Wildcat, Paisley Arts Centre and Clyde Unity Theatre. He was Associate Director at the Netherbow Arts Centre in Edinburgh and Artistic Director of Borders Youth Theatre before moving south to Wigan, where he spent the last six years running the Wigan Pier Theatre Company.

Stewart says of his move to Aberdeen:"It's a major challenge to continue the success of the Aberdeen International Youth Festival with its very impressive history and important position in the Intrenational cultural scene. My family share my excitement at the move and my two girls are looking forward to exploring their new surroundings."

Stewart Aitken replaces Stephen Stenning, who has joined Glasgow based events company UZ.