We heard on Friday that we had received a grant from the Foyle Foundation to undertake research and development on our idea to turn the Vanora legend into an opera as part of the Cateran’s Common Wealth programme.

Janis Hart, Zoe Strachan, Kally Lloyd Jones, Jessica Cottis on top of Barry Hill, Photo Clare Cooper

Working with an amazing Scottish creative team who have come around the project: Kally Lloyd-Jones, Jessica Cottis, Zoe Strachan and John Harris, we will spend the next few months researching this local legend and its background further, reconnoitring the area including key sites and venues, bashing out ideas and meeting with local people and community groups to see how we can create the project together.

For those of you reading this who are not familiar with this extraordinary treasure of Cateran’s Common Wealth You can read a bit of background here by the historian Stuart McHardy.