The Storylands Sessions are a series of community music, storytelling, poetry and song events held in Badenoch. Under the umbrella of Badenoch Heritage, they are run jointly by local artists, folk musician, Hamish Napier, and writer, Merryn Glover.
The monthly event series consists of six main events: a pair of open mic nights (early and late shows) of music and spoken word; monthly folk music ensemble workshops and spoken/written word workshops (both in-person and online). There is also an end-of-year ceilidh.
Storylands Sessions is rooted in the local community. We are a hub that continues to develop partnerships with local organisations and individuals for the benefit of people who live and work in our community. The events are fully accessible to visitors to the area as well.
We feel it is our duty to set a good example to our community of how we can each mitigate and adapt to the climate emergency. The Sessions are creating a hub/space and scene that enables and motivates the community to contribute towards the ongoing decision making and discussions about the climate emergency. At the heart of the Sessions is a celebration of the Badenoch area, and fundamental to Badenoch is the unique and fragile environment of The Cairngorms National Park. Nearly all our Sessions have included music and words that highlight the natural world, fostering awareness and care for it, and some of our themed evenings have explicitly focused on nature. Some of our invited guests over the last 2 years came from the environmental/ecology/naturalist community to raise awareness in caring for our unique area, including Lynn Cassells & Sandra Baer, regenerative farmers at Lynbreck Croft. Other performers have included Will Boyd-Wallis from the National Trust for Scotland, Duncan Macdonald, wildlife guide and Cairngorms Capercaillie Project Community Ranger and Sarah Hobbs, whose Strathspey Storywalks feature ecology, wild food foraging, Gaelic language and landscape awareness.