Growing creative ties

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Growing creative ties

Dunedin (21 January 2015) – Dunedin locals are forging stronger creative ties in Scotland this week through the Glasgow music festival Celtic Connections and the Edinburgh based Neu! Reekie! Burns on Fire!

Dunedin musician and song writer Jake Cropley, supported by the Dunedin City Council and the Dunedin Edinburgh Sister City Committee, is playing at the world’s largest Celtic music festival, Celtic Connections tonight. He is performing at the Dunedin tae Auld Reekie, a folk club gig in the festival to celebrate the special sister city relationship between Dunedin and Edinburgh.

Jake will then play in Edinburgh at Neu! Reekie! Burns on Fire!, an Edinburgh City of Literature initiative this Saturday. The gathering brings together poets, dancers, DJs and musicians. Jake will play his Commonwealth Baton rousing song, On Forever Ye Go, which was selected to welcome the Queens Commonwealth Baton last year along with a song based on a Robert Burns poem, which he has written especially for the night.

Also at Neu! Reekie! Burns on Fire! poems by former Logan Park High School student Josephine Devereux will be read out by New Zealand born Scottish Poetry Library Director, Robyn Marsack. Josephine’s winning poem Keeping up Appearances, from last year’s Dunedin Secondary Schools National Poetry Day Competition, and either The Obligation or Irradiation are expected to be read aloud. The popular event celebrates Dunedin’s recent designation as a UNESCO City of Literature and the support and mentoring given to Dunedin by Edinburgh.

“These opportunities for Jake and Josephine are in part due to the City of Literature link that now exists between Dunedin and Edinburgh. But, they also reemphasise the long established creative connections between Scotland and Dunedin, which grow stronger each year and will continue to do so,” says Dunedin City of Literature Bid Coordinator, Liz Knowles.

The events in Scotland will coincide with Dunedin celebrations of Robert Burns’ birthday with Robbie Rocks, the Robert Burns Poetry Competition and the Burns Dinner at Toitū Otago Settlers Museum on 25 January from 7pm.

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