6 Best Performing Arts Venues in Orkney and Shetland Islands, Scotland

Usually held in the third week of June, Kirkwall's St. Magnus International Festival is a world-class celebration of classical music, opera, chamber music, ensemble and solo performances, dance, and drama, performed in inspiring venues including St. Magnus Cathedral.

This eclectic three-day festival, normally held around the last weekend in September, is billed as the most northerly blues event in the United Kingdom, attracting leading rhythm and blues performers from all over the world. It takes place in hotel bars and pubs around Stromness, and all the concerts, except the grand finale event, are free.

This four-day festival, in operation since 1983, is held in and around Stromness in late May. It attracts musicians of all ages from Orkney's own vibrant folk music scene, as well as from as far away as Canada, Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean.

This busy five-day event in early October is one of the biggest fixtures on Shetland's cultural calendar, with concerts by celebrated local fiddlers, squeeze-box players, and visiting musicians at venues all over the islands.

Shetland fiddlers are legends in the folk music world, keeping the musical traditions of the islands alive when such folkways had all but died out in the rest of Scotland. Musicians and music fans from all over the world gather for four days and nights of foot-tapping tunes at venues in Lerwick and all over Shetland, normally during the last weekend in April or first weekend of May.

On the last Tuesday in January, Shetlanders celebrate their Norse heritage by dressing as Vikings, parading through the streets with flaming torches, and then burning a replica of a Viking galley. This is naturally followed by extensive feasting, carousing, and dancing.