A special Burns season fundraiser for the Friends of Wighton programme – please note timing! Featuring Barbara Dymock, Wilma Kennedy, Sheena Wellington, Wighton Singers, Piers Bowser as Tam O Shanter, Erin Farley, Morag Anne Elder’s Mixed Instruments, Mary Veal’s Harpers, and a singalong with Karen McAulay on piano!
Admission by donation, raffle, auction, refreshments available! Not to be missed!
We are absolutely delighted, thrilled and chuffed to the soles of our slippers to announce that, on Saturday 6th December, Rosa Michaelson, Friends of Wighton’s Membership Secretary, will be inducted, along with her colleagues in the ground-breaking band Sprangeen, into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame at the MG Alba Scots Trad Awards. Rosa, a classically trained violinist who plays sonata or strathspey with equal skill, is an acknowledged authority on Scottish fiddle tunes. Congratulations, Rosa, we are proud of you!
We send congratulations, too, to our recent Cappuccino Concert guest, Elspeth Cowie, who will also be inducted at the ceremony at Aberdeen’s Music Hall on Saturday. The Trad Awards are shown on BBC Alba on Saturday 6th from 9pm
Taking over the city centre, this free, family-friendly event brings the heart of city to life with live music, street performers, delicious food, and a spectacular torchlight procession and parade.
The Doolichters, Dundee’s oldest boy band ,and big Wighton favourites, will once again bring their own peculiar take on life in their home city of Dundee to the Wighton Centre. As always, there will be great music and songs, great humour and almost certainly a chance to sing along!
Admission £5 (doors open 10.30am)
The Friends of Wighton group will welcome the Scottish Traditional Music Awards to Dundee by inviting visiting and local music lovers to take a close-up look at the fascinating Wighton Collection and enjoy a live music sessionat the same time.
The Centre will be open from 2pm to 5pm on Friday 4th December and from 10am -12.15pm on Saturday 5th December. Books will be on display and Wighton tutors and committee members will be there to sing, play and answer questions!
The Wighton Heritage Centre was opened on 24th November 2003. Located upstairs in Dundee Central Library, it provides a dedicated space for the storage and display of the internationally important Wighton Collection. 700 volumes of old Scottish music were collected together in the early 19th century by Dundee merchant Andrew Wighton, and were bequeathed to the city after his death.
The Wighton books with other donations and acquisitions, are now kept in glass-fronted bookcases in the Wighton Centre. The Centre also acts as a bright, atmospheric performance and study centre, allowing scholars to access the riches of the collection, and providing a lovely performance space for music and other events.
As well as a monthly Cappuccino Concert, and a free Wednesday lunchtime recital every month, the Friends of Wighton run classes in traditional Scottish music every week: Scots song, Gaelic song, fiddle, whistle and clarsach (Scottish harp).
The Friends also work towards the conservation and cataloguing of the collection of books, and have made some important acquisitions to add to the collection. They are currently fundraising to conserve rare music books from the collection of Sir Jimmy Shand and visitors will be able to contribute. Jimmy’s musical taste was exemplary, as shown by the lovely 18th and 19th century manuscripts in his collection. Rumour has it that one or two of the Shand books, currently not on public display, might make an appearance at the Open Days!
Yesterday, the song and instrument classes joined together for their famous annual Christmas party. We listened to Gaelic songs, Scots songs, fiddle, whistle and clarsach tunes, as well as a piano piece and some unexpected extras!
Here’s a couple of photos. Classes restart on Saturday 10th January (Scots Song on Tuesday 13th).
