Message from the Director
Welcome to the web site of Sgoil Chiùil na Gàidhealtachd, the National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music. This is our seventh year of operation, and seven busy and exciting years they have been. Right now, there’s no reason to believe that this one will be any different.

The National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music was established at Plockton High School in May 2000 with funding from the Scottish Executive's Education Department, with assistance from Highland Council. Since then, we like to think we’ve established ourselves as a place where talented young traditional musicians can come and develop their skills.

Our students learn playing and singing, both live and in the studio, composing and arranging, the history and context of traditional music, stagecraft, music technology, and all the other diverse skills which go to make up a modern professional musician. We have a busy performing schedule, and we make a CD every year.

Our leavers are well equipped for further study in music, or indeed a career in music if that’s what they want. But it’s important to know that we don’t consider ourselves merely a hothouse for professional musicians. Many of our leavers have followed other career paths, but what’s important to us is that they take their music with them wherever they go in life. After all, that’s how a tradition survives and thrives.

Admission to the Centre is by audition, and successful candidates are expected to show a high standard of performing ability as well as evidence of genuine potential to develop as a traditional musician. Once they’re in, students receive top quality tuition in their main discipline plus one other, and participate in a wide range of extra-curricular activities related to traditional music.

Students live in the pupil residence, which is also the base of the Centre's activities. The facilities at the Centre include a main rehearsal/performance space, individual soundproof practice rooms, a library, and two recording studios.

At the moment, the Centre is funded for 23 places. We usually audition around 25 applicants in March each year, and the number of place available depends on the number who leave the Centre each year.

The basic curricular package on offer is ten hours per week, consisting of individual instruction, groupwork and practice. All the students study two disciplines, and receive one period per week of individual instruction in each of these disciplines. These two periods are classroom extraction periods, and every effort is made to minimise the disruption this inevitably causes.

The evening programme is:
4-5 pm - music groupwork
5-7 pm - dinner/ leisure activities
7-8 pm - homework
8-9 pm - supervised practice

This programme is monitored very closely and reviewed regularly. The basic curricular package is augmented by a series of weekend workshops and masterclasses and outreach opportunities.

Many of the students stay in the Residence for at least some weekends during term time, and extra supervision and activities are provided for them.

Relations with our host school, Plockton High School, are excellent, and our students' academic achievement is as important to us as their music. All of the Centre’s students are encouraged to take as full a part in the general life of the school as possible, although in the case of a clash of interests their music activities take precedence. The students of the Traditional Music Centre are completely integrated into school life, and the Centre is widely regarded as an asset to the school.

We are all very proud of what we have been able to achieve in the fairly short existence of the Centre, and we believe that this is largely due not only to the tremendous ability, effort and commitment of everyone involved, not least the students.

If you'd like to know more about what we do and how we do it, feel free to call or e-mail - the details are at the bottom of the page. Better still, come and see us. Advisory auditions and preliminary tours are available by appointment.

Thanks for your virtual visit. I hope you can make a real one soon.

Dougie Pincock
Director

< - The Centre

Tel 01599 544706
The National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music,
Plockton High School, Plockton, Wester Ross IV52 8TU
email dougie.pincock@highland.gov.uk
www.musicplockton.org