Premiere

This afternoon I said a few words at the concert which marked the start of the 70th winter season organised by the Cowal Music Club.

I had been asked to do so by my friends Don McNeil and Jean Bell, artists living at Newton on Loch Fyne , who are very active in the local arts scene and who had the idea for a extraordinary work which was premiered at the concert today - Cowal Colours composed by Eddie McGuire (whom I have met many times over the years, most notably when he was a recipient of one of the big Creative Scotland Awards in the year that I chaired the jury).

Cowal Colours is a collaboration between Don & Jean, Eddie and the film maker Gordon Davidson. Unusually for a musical / visual arts creation both sides have influenced each other and altered and built all the works as the interaction intensified. In addition the inclusion of the film of Don & Jean at work added another fascinating dimension.

The work was written for "Hoot", the excellent flute and harp duo of Helen MacLeod and Emma Wilkins whom I have heard before at the Club though on a very different day ; this afternoon it was pouring and grey as it has been for several days now.

None the less it was a great afternoon and these are all the key figures taken with the pictures in situ , just before the performance started.