As Violinist Arianna played professionally across Scotland, notably in rural areas, she learned of many audience members lacking the resources to learn an instrument as part of smaller communities. Taking on a PhD with Edinburgh Napier University, she made the decision to offer beginner’s tuition as part of her project, Community Instrumental Music Service for Rural Scotland (CIMSRS).
As part of her research, Arianna is examining the effect that playing music is having on participants and assessing whether this could become a model for growing self-sustaining music communities in rural Scotland. She states, “I hope that our discussions can help find a way to continue this momentum and offer the opportunity of playing an instrument to more communities across Scotland”.
Arianna says “It’s really important that living in a rural area doesn’t equate to a lack of opportunities, and seeing this project ensure that people can still enjoy access to music education, regardless of where they live, is really great.” Many of the participants in Millport and Auchtermuchty had no previous experience of playing music. Following 12 weeks of teaching violin and viola in both towns, each was left with a small community of enthusiastic upper strings players - who dubbed themselves the Bothy Bowers and the Fife Fiddlers respectively. Arianna is now five weeks into another set of lessons, this time in Glencoe. Anyone interested in Arianna’s work can find out more on the CIMSRS social media channels.
Learn more about how Arianna's project started and what work she is doing to expand music education across the country.