For Argyll

The 2008 Blas Festival programme offers over forty five events across the Scottish Highlands from September 5th to 13th, with music, dance and the Gaelic language at its heart. The Gaelic word ‘Blas’ means a taste or a savour - so that’s what the festival provides around culture, traditional music and the Gaelic language. While the centre of the festival will be in Inverness, events will take place in towns and villages across the Highlands and Islands.Concerts will run alongside workshops, language-based events and a ‘blas’ of locally produced food specialities. Drams are not unknown.

The programme headlines the Irish group, The Chieftains, with JP Cormier from Cape Breton, Julie Fowlis and Muireann Nic Arhlaoibh, Finlay MacDonald, Daimh, The Glenuig MacDonalds, Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham, Fred Morrison, Jenna Reid (who has been at the Lochgoilhead Fiddle Club) Nuala Kennedy, Irish American group Cherish the Ladies, the Peatbog Faeries, The Vatersay Boys, Urachadh, Christine Primrose, Skippinish, Bruce MacGregor, Shooglenifty. James Ross will also be pr4swenting a new commissioned work - Chasing the Sun - written for piano, string quartet, saxophone, whistles and bagpipes. It will be performed by James Ross himself with Mr McFall’s Chamber and Fraser Fifield.

BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Radio nan Gaidheal will together present a live broadcast on 31st July to launch the festival. Broadcast from 8.05pm, the programme will be hosted in Gaelic and English by Mary Ann Kennedy and Archie Fisher and will featrue amny of the artists appearing in the Blas programme. Look out for Argyll-based events.