A SECONDARY school in the Highlands that trains youngsters in traditional Scottish music is gearing up to host a special 25th-anniversary celebration this summer.
Opened in 2000, the National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music in Plockton is the only school of its kind in the country and will celebrate 25 years as an institution with an anniversary concert on June 19 in the Eden Court Theatre, Inverness.
Centre manager and artist Mike Vass discussed the past, present and future of the institution with the Sunday National ahead of its summer celebrations, which will see notable alumni take to the stage alongside current pupils.
“It was actually an initiative of the Labour government at the time in the late 1990s, quite newly into the devolved parliament, they decided to set up these centres of excellence, of which there are four music schools," Vass shared.
“There’s City of Edinburgh, City of Aberdeen, Douglas and ourselves, Plockton. The idea behind Plockton was to promote traditional music and give young people who are interested in traditional music and potential careers to come and be immersed in it.
“The students come to Plockton High School and do all their regular subjects there. But then, as well as that, they're immersed in music and are playing pretty much the rest of the time when they're not in their regular subjects.”
Though relatively small with only around 20 spaces, students benefit from tuition in instruments like the fiddle, bagpipes and piano from well-established trad musicians, with artists like award-winning piper Iain McFadyen and Gaelic singer Rachel Walker part of the school’s extended teaching staff.
The Plockton curriculum offers unique performance opportunities too, such as this year’s S6 class arranging and promoting their own tour across the country with Vass behind the wheel of their minibus.
For the anniversary concert, the list of alumni in attendance includes Gaelic singer Deirdre Graham, piano and fiddle duo Charlie Grey and Joseph Peach, piper Malin Lewis and members of internationally acclaimed folk band Breabach, Ewan Robertson and Conal McDonagh.
Vass took over the position of centre manager after his predecessor, Dougie Pincock retired in 2023.
“At the moment, we're in the high school hostel, which is a prefab building from the early 1960s so it's a little bit past its sell-by date.
“It wasn't purpose-built for music, so we're kind of shoehorned in a wee bit. We would love to work towards a purpose-built music school, which would mean we could possibly attract more students as we’re limited to about 20 at the moment, but the other three centres of excellence all have around 40 to 50 students.
“If we were able to have a purpose-built space, we could bring in even more young people. The demand is there, but we just don't have the facility at the moment to accommodate everybody who wants to come here.”
When it comes to the preservation of traditional Scottish music, Vass hopes the training given to budding musicians through the centre encourages more Scots to engage with the genre.
“I think traditional music is a community music that should be, and hopefully is, accessible to everybody in some way," he said, adding: "it's a real chance for our young people to engage with the music from where they're from. I think it's very, very important that the school is part of that legacy.
“It can't be understated how valuable these opportunities to connect with their culture are for them, and hopefully engaging with their own music and culture in that way inspires their peers as well.
“We hope that it encourages other people, young and old, to engage and play and benefit from it; music is an amazing thing – it becomes an obsession, really.”
Tickets are available here and the anniversary concert is open to the public.
