The National Lottery will support a new £69m National Centre for Music at Edinburgh's former Royal High School.
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00:00Hi, I'm Brian Ferguson, Arts Correspondent at the Scotsman, and I'm here inside the former Royal High School on Calton Hill in Edinburgh.
00:08This building, which is one of the most prominent in Edinburgh City Centre, has effectively been closed to the public since 1968 when the high school relocated.
00:18There have been plans for the last few years to turn it into a new National Centre for Music and a new indoor concert hall, which will be in the main hall behind me here.
00:28The project has had a huge boost with a pledge of almost £5 million from the National Heritage Lottery Fund, which will help work get underway within the next few months,
00:40and the building should be open to the public for the first time since 1968 by 2027, all going well.
00:50So, Carol, we're here in the former Royal High School on Calton Hill, and there's been some quite big news about the long-planned project to create a new cultural hub in this building.
01:02Tell us where we've got to with the project.
01:05Well, today we are delighted to announce that the Royal High School Preservation Trust and the Old Royal High School have been awarded starter funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund,
01:18and today is actually Heritage Treasures Day, and this building is the Scottish announcement for that.
01:27This building has been awarded National Heritage Treasure Heritage status.
01:34So, how important is it to get some validation and support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund for this project, after such a long period of campaigning and fundraising as well?
01:47Well, you're absolutely right. That's what it gives us. It validates and endorses all we've been doing for a very long time, and particularly this project.
01:55I mean, it's the building that has been given the funding, and we're developing this into the National Centre for Music, so long-term, the whole sector will gain from this.
02:06Tell us a little bit about what's going to be happening in the next few months, and then tell us when people might be able to come to the first concerts and other events in the building.
02:17Well, we have been doing enabling and advanced works to investigate the site. It's a heritage site, so you do expect problems, so we're doing as much as we can in advance to know what they are. So far, so good.
02:29And we intend, construction starts this summer, and we hope to open the doors in summer 2027.
02:37And tell us a little bit about what the National Centre for Music is going to be doing once it's up and running.
02:43It's going to be championing music of all genre, and across the whole of the music sector. And we're hoping to have people here to collaborate and work together, and performances all day, all times, young and old. People from down the road, and from abroad, and from all over.
03:08And people will be able to hire this space behind you in years to come, to put on their own, and concert organisers will be able to put on their own events here, is that right?
03:16Yes, yes. Jenny Jameson, our Creative Director, is speaking to the whole sector and stakeholders, and that will be exactly what can happen.
03:26So Jenny, we've reached a really important point in the campaign to get the former Royal High School and Edinburgh City Centre reopened to the public, really, for the first time since the 1960s. Can you tell us how important it is to get to this point?
03:43Yeah, today feels like a major milestone for us. We're absolutely delighted to have the news of this new award, and that will really enable us to start to connect even more deeply with the communities who are connected to this project, find out what this building means to them, how they want to experience its heritage, what they want a National Centre for Music to be.
04:02And I think for us, having public funding and public support also sort of re-energises us, re-cements the desire and the commitment to making sure that we celebrate the full richness and diversity of music making in Scotland. So it's a positive moment for everyone here in a new phase of the project kicking off.
04:21What difference will the National Centre for Music make in the city of Edinburgh, do you think? What kind of gaps will it be filling?
04:28So for us, first of all, we want to really make sure people understand that we want to be working across all music genres. We want to support the full ecosystem and every type of musical creativity happening in Scotland. So that for us means we would be able to partner and collaborate with a lot of existing amazing activity already happening, both here but also across the country.
04:47I also think in terms of the spaces that we've got here, we have a huge flexibility in what type of event people can put on. We have an intensity in terms of the scale, it's an intimate performance environment in lots of those spaces. So the Maid Auditorium is 200 to 300 seats and I think that's a really nice complement to what already exists in Edinburgh's musical infrastructure.
05:08And there'll be performances all year round and you'll be open to the public all year, is that correct?
05:14Absolutely, yes. Our gardens, the landscape gardens that will frame the site will be open all year. The venue will be open all year. We want musical exchange and creativity to be happening every day. And so you can expect to come and hear a choir singing in the gardens, see a musical workshop happening in one of the octagons and come for an amazing experience in the cafe, see the views and a concert in the evening. So every day we hope different types of musical activity will coexist.
05:39So obviously the building has been open for a few events in recent years but the vast majority of people in Edinburgh wouldn't have been inside this building before.
05:46Yes, so Hidden Door Festival was here a few years ago and there's lots of memories that have seeped out from that and I think people feel the excitement that they'll be able to come into this building that's been open for 50 years. And certainly I often speak to people who say they walk past it every day but don't know what it's going to be so we're really excited to start telling the story of this heritage treasure and start to open it up to new audiences from the city, Scotland and of course the wider world that visits Edinburgh too.
06:14And do you hope that some of the music stars of the future to come out of Edinburgh and Scotland will either come here to learn or see music for the first time?
06:22Absolutely, we want this to be a place where Scottish musical history is made. We want people to have artists to have time to develop their skills, to collaborate and connect with other musical activity happening in Scotland. So I would really hope that when you look 20-30 years down the line some of the big voices, the people that are changing Scottish musical language and history have had a connection with us and have had time here to connect with audiences and share their music making.
06:48Caroline, we're here in the former Royal High School on Carlton Hill for the big announcement from the National Heritage Lottery Fund. Can you tell us a little bit about your support for this building and what's going to be happening with it?
07:01Yeah, absolutely. So we at the National Heritage Lottery Fund have earmarked up to £5 million to help turn this project into a fantastic restored building with a music centre in it that's just going to be an absolute cultural asset for Scotland. Really exciting.
07:18Tell us a little bit about the plans for the building and what it's going to become when it's up and running in a few years' time.
07:25So the building is going to be fully restored. It's obviously an architectural gem and part of the iconic Athens of the North that makes Edinburgh what it is. So there's the restoration of the building but also converting it to musical use.
07:40So the room we're in at the moment will be used for musical performances but also musical organisations from across the country will be able to use it to teach. So there'll be a whole variety of different musical uses for this building.
07:53And then quite excitingly, for the first time in a long time, new green space around the building as well, really opening up the centre of Edinburgh for new areas of gardens so that there'll be opportunities to come in, explore round about the building as well as within the building itself.
08:08So I think for the people of Edinburgh who've maybe gone past it and just seen the front, you'll be quite surprised to see just how many different spaces and places there will be opening up for the very first time.
08:18So it's quite an unusual project because it's a big public asset to the city and yet it's been closed for decades. So it's reopening again but that's very much being led by philanthropic support. So you're coming in to help support us.
08:33Yeah, we are. And I think that's a measure of just how special this building is, the amount of philanthropy that's been given to make this happen. But also just the complexity of tackling a historic building means that it's not just the one organisation. We all need to come together to help make something as significant as this a reality.