Scotland?s arts scene is boosted this week by the announcement of the Fifteenth Annual Arts & Business Scottish Awards for Business Sponsorship of the Arts and a number of other ground-breaking initiatives.
Amidst general gloom over falling sponsorship levels in the UK as a whole, A&B received 140 nominations for the awards and short-listed 60 of them. Categories included Small Business Sponsorship, Increasing Access to the Arts, Visionary Sponsorship and First Time Sponsorship, and award winners ranged in scope from performances of Wagner?s entire ?Ring Cycle? to supporting an online children?s writing competition. Art-forms and styles ranged from Rembrandt to Celtic music. An emphasis on accessibility was underlined by the myriad places in which the nominated projects were set, from tents via factories and quarries to historic houses, as well as traditional arts spaces. This indicates that accessiblity is an aim not only for the arts community but for their business partners.
Judges for the awards were George Edwards (Chair), Chairman, Scotland GPC International; Samantha Barber, Chief Executive, Scottish Business in the Community; Jackie Doyle, Managing Director, Enable Group; and the writer Ian Rankin.
At the same time, the Scottish Arts Council has announced more support for traditional national art-forms, including a number of music development and traditional dance posts and 10 new storytelling fellowships. The emphasis is on creating new posts and supporting education and community activity. Several projects appear on both the A&B and the SAC lists, indicating that sponsorship and arts establishment aims may be achieving some harmony. A new sponsorship record for the Edinburgh International Book Festival also bucks the trend. An increase of 100% over their 2000 total can be set against an overall drop of 25% across the country. Their list of sponsors ? including donors in kind ? numbers 53 organisations, including charities and societies as well as businesses.
The Arts and Business accolades have generally gone to larger sponsorship deals, though awards such as Volunteer of the Year emphasise their commitment to personal involvement by business people in the arts organisations they sponsor. Lord Stevenson of Coddenham, representing the Bank of Scotland, which sponsored the awards, said that the prizes were ?a way of rewarding and encouraging Scottish businesses for their support across a wide range of arts projects in Scotland.?