AFTER FIVE years of growing success Brechin Arts Festival has become one of the biggest cultural events in Scotland.

In 2007 the festival was among the five largest arts festivals in Scotland and achieved the distinction of Angus Tourism Ambassador.

The volunteers behind this success are now working on the 2008 programme of 17 days of top class events, workshops and exhibitions across a wide range of art forms and genres including drama, the spoken word and traditional and classical music.

The festival has attracted performers and visitors from as far afield as Spain, Ukraine, Russia and Alaska but one of the first bookings will come from much closer to home.

The Aberdeen Bach Choir under its new musical director Gordon Jack, will be part of the festival’s finale on September 28.

The choir performs regularly in St Machar’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, and as well as works by J. S. Bach, the choir, with up to 100 voices, performs a wide variety of choral music from the 17th to the 21st century.

“They were very popular at our first festival and it is great to have them back for our sixth,” festival chairwoman Ruth Leslie Melville said.

She also announced that the festival is planning a community play to be enacted in the cathedral and the theme of which will be the history of the area.

“We will have a professional director and we are looking to get a lot of people together from Brechin and the surrounding area to take part in the performances on September 11, 12 and 13.

“We hope to draw together dancers, singers, drama groups and any other interested bodies so we can gauge what kind of production it will be,” she said.