Glasgow: a city alive to the sound of music

THERE is a distinct air of optimism as Linda Fabiani, Scotland's culture minister, and Glasgow's Lord Provost, Robert Winter, step on to the easyJet flight to Paris armed with a glossy 50-page dossier.

The pair are travelling to the French capital, along with delegates including Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) chairman Tom Thomson, to lodge the document which contains Glasgow's official bid to recognise as a world centre of music.

As the brochure points out – with a musical heritage ranging from Celtic Connections to Lulu, and as home to Scotland's major orchestras as well as top bands such as Franz Ferdinand – there's much music being made in Glasgow. Now, with the backing of music enthusiasts including Gordon Brown and Nicola Benedetti, it wants to join two other European cities, Seville and Bologna, as an official Unesco City of Music.

Arriving to the sound of Scots pipers and singers at the Paris headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, Fabiani, inset, is in buoyant mood. "Glasgow has a fantastic tradition of music," says the SNP MSP, who is a long-time fan of traditional music. "The Celtic Connections festival is huge," she adds, but she also highlights the classical traditions and music hall that produced the likes of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band.

This is not the first time that Scottish representatives have been in Paris on such a mission. Four years ago, a large delegation from Edinburgh went to ask for what was a brand-new title, Unesco City of Literature – a request that was granted. But now, as then, the campaign poses the question: what does it mean, or achieve, or cost, to be a UNESCO city of literature, or music, design, or gastronomy."

It is a "rallying cry", says Anna Burkey, of the Edinburgh Unesco City of Literature Trust. "It has given us a high international profile. We are a first point of contact to talk to about literature."

The trust has sponsored two city-wide reading campaigns, but doubts linger over how much is actually being achieved with the £70,000 the organisation receives from the Scottish Arts Council, and £35,000 from the City of Edinburgh. And while such an accolade may bring certain benefits, why should Glasgow be the next City of Music and not, say, Salzburg, or Liverpool, home of the Beatles? In its application dossier, the Glasgow committee clobbers Unesco with facts. In Scottish terms, the city is the classical powerhouse, home to the RSNO, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD), Scottish Opera, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland.

"In a typical week, an impressive 127 music events are presented in Glasgow, more than any other Scottish city," the dossier states, estimating the industry's worth at £74.6 million to Glasgow's economy and employing 2,922 people.

In his speech to Unesco, the Lord Provost speaks of Glasgow as the setting for the first full performance of Berlioz's Les Troyens, of Chopin's first train ride, of John Adams conducting in the city, of the RSNO commissioning the young French composer Guillaume Connesson. "It's up to any city to maximise what they make out of an accolade of this kind," he says later. "Without a doubt, Glasgow in the UK, outside London, is the music centre." Even fan chants, he suggests in a remark which will raise eyebrows, are "one expression of the music in our population".

If Glasgow does win its bid – it faces a six-month wait to find out – an organisation will be set up in the city to make the most of it. Supporters say the Unesco recognition could raise the profile of the Commonwealth Games, the Glasgow International Piano Competition, and the RSAMD's efforts to boost its international profile as a leading music college.

Unesco also foresees wider benefits. Georges Poussin, chief of the body's creative industry section, says: "If Glasgow is admitted it would be very helpful for the development of its music and boost co-operation with other creative cities." His words came on an afternoon when the gentle strains of French accordions around the Unesco headquarters were replaced by the insistent skirl of the bagpipes. Whether Glasgow's bid has made such a powerful impression on Unesco's chiefs in Paris remains to be seen.

Still jamming with the best of them

GLASGOW has long had a love affair with Scotland's traditional music. The city's folk scene spawned legendary acts such as The Humblebums, Battlefield Band, The Whistlebinkies and The Incredible String Band, and has a wealth of bars hosting regular live sessions.

However, in 1994, when the city launched a new festival showcasing traditional and folk music, Celtic Connections, many critics scoffed at the idea of such an event being sustained at any time of the year, far less in mid-January, the time chosen by staff at the city's Royal Concert Hall.

Initially planned to run for three years, the festival was seen as a huge success in its first year, attracting 35,000 people to the venue, built for the city's reign as European cultural capital in 1990.

Celtic Connections now features more than 300 events at venues across the city and is widely seen as one of the world's leading traditional music events, embracing a host of different styles of music.

It regularly attracts major international acts and is widely credited with boosting audiences for roots, world music, jazz, Americana and even country music.

A number of new festivals have been launched in Celtic Connections' wake, including Piping Live, held to coincide with the World Pipe Band Championships in August, and major year-round venues include Oran Mor, the Old Fruitmarket and the Arches.

Brian Ferguson

Attuned to the jangle of guitars

FROM a rock and pop perspective, Glasgow is emphatically a music city, perpetually tussling with Manchester for the mantle of the UK's most vibrant grassroots musical hub.

As a thriving port in the1950s and 60s, the city soaked up the revolutionary rhythm'n'blues and rock'n'roll sounds blasting in over the Atlantic and then shipped them right back, Caledonia-style – a relationship which continues today. The council may have banished punk gigs from the city boundaries in the late 1970s, but the music scene in Glasgow has been irrepressible for the past three decades, whether spawning commercial successes such as Wet Wet Wet, Simple Minds and Texas in the 1980s and 90s and Travis and Franz Ferdinand in the past decade, or inspiring the influential, independent single-mindedness of Postcard Records and Belle & Sebastian.

In 2008, young songwriters such as Paolo Nutini and Amy MacDonald are our newest stars, and the live scene has never been healthier, thanks to a burgeoning network of tremendous venues – including the internationally loved Barrowland. Meanwhile, the DIY tradition flourishes, with young, independent gig promoters and label owners moving and shaking alongside our latest exports such as The Fratellis, Sons & Daughters and Glasvegas.

Fiona Shepherd

This is a long-proven city of culture

GLASGOW proved back in 1990 that it was a European City of Culture in which music had a special place, and even built a brand new Royal Concert Hall to prove it. Since then, things have simply got better and better.

The reasons are partly historical. All but one of the national music providers are based in Glasgow – the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra; Scottish Opera; and the Scottish Ensemble.

Their regular concert seasons are part of the lifeblood of the city's busy cultural calendar.

Add to that the presence of Scotland's only music conservatoire, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, which promotes its own dizzy variety of top-level musical performances year-round, as well as training the country's most talented young musicians. All of that has been part of Glasgow's rich musical life for well over a century. But the city has never rested on its laurels. Which other UK city has had the foresight to develop a growing suite of major venues that not only pool the resources of the resident performing bodies, but make it possible for those combined venues – the GRCH and the superbly refurbished, multi-space City Halls – to mount their own inspired International Seasons as well?

The sad thing is that, in so doing, Glasgow puts Edinburgh to shame.

Kenneth Walton