Caithness Music Festival set to take centre stage in Wick's Assembly Rooms next week
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Organisers of this year's Caithness Music Festival are delighted that the 2022 event will take place after having to cancel proceedings for the last two years.
Festival convener Marjory Richard said: "We are just delighted that it is able to go ahead. We were not sure at the beginning of this year if it would go ahead. We all love it."
Although entries are slightly down for 2022, the convener explained: "It is now going to be a four-day festival instead of five days, running from Tuesday through to Friday.
"Thank goodness we have a building like the Assembly Rooms – we are very fortunate that we can have it all under the same roof.
"We would not be able to have a festival if it was not for the volunteers. We have to get every class covered – someone to sit next to the adjudicator and someone to do the announcements.
"We are always looking for volunteers to help during the festival week. We have no funding from anywhere else, it is all done on entry money for classes and the audience coming into see the festival."
This year the seating in the Assembly Rooms has been cut due to Covid restrictions which may make it difficult to fit everyone in for the popular school group classes.
The festival gets under way on Tuesday morning, with the first class attracting 10 entries – four from Noss Primary School, two from Newton Park, two from Miller Academy and two from Lybster.
Mrs Richard pointed out that this section would involve a lot of children and if all their parents wanted to come and see the performances it may prove tricky with the limited seating.
Adjudicating the music classes will be Richard Yarr from Belfast, who works with BBC Radio Ulster, and in charge of speech and drama will be Norma Redfearn. They were both adjudicators at the last festival in Caithness in 2019.
Caithness dialect classes will come under the scrutiny of Wick woman Jenny Szyfelbain. Sadly this is one of the sections that has seen a decrease in entries this year. This popular section would usually spill over to the afternoon but next week it will just take place over a morning.
On the Monday after the festival a concert will be held for all those who have won their classes. This year, because entries are down, the committee have taken the decision to just do the one concert in Wick instead of having one in Thurso as well.
