Following a 3-day digital event at Showcase Scotland 2022, Wales Arts International are pleased to announce that Wales will return as international partner in 2023, sharing the year with our Celtic sister Brittany.

For the first time in 15 years, Wales was the featured international partner at Showcase Scotland this year, a prestigious spotlight event for the music industry at the Celtic Connections festival. In 2020 the festival in Glasgow played to an in-person audience of over 130,000 people which included booking agents and cultural leaders.

This year’s digital edition of Showcase Scotland and the hybrid Celtic Connections programme bridged with audiences in Scotland, Wales and across the world. At the event, the First Minister Mark Drakeford shared a message on the importance of music and culture to the wellbeing of Wales as well as the valuable opportunity to collaborate with friends in Scotland and across the world. Dawn Bowden (Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport) and Phil George (Chair of Arts Council of Wales) were also in attendance to share a personal message with over 100 international delegates. 6 artists from Wales - N’famady Kouyaté, Eve Goodman, Pedair, Cynefin, The Trials of Cato and NoGood Boyo - took to the digital stage, showcasing the unique, bold and diverse Celtic identity Wales has to offer. The experience of showcasing to international delegates has opened up many opportunities for the artists, who are already booking shows and festivals across the world as a direct result of the showcase. We look forward to following their journeys as these opportunities come to fruition.

Judith Musker Turner, the Wales at Showcase Scotland Project Lead said, “Being the international partner for Showcase Scotland 2022 at Celtic Connections has been a fantastic opportunity to show international audiences how diverse, vibrant and distinctive Welsh music is, and to carve out a space for Wales within the global Celtic music scene. With the Spotlight Cymru Wales showcase taking place on Dydd Miwsig Cymru alongside showcases of music in Gaelic and Scots, the event also celebrated the beginning of the UN Decade of Indigenous Languages and engaged with the theme for the first year of the decade of Gwrando – Listening.”

Wales was announced as co-partner for 2023 during the Showcase Scotland closing ceremony on Friday 4 February, where Eluned Hâf (Head of Wales Arts International) expressed her thanks to the Showcase Scotland and Celtic Connections teams and welcomed the opportunity to collaborate with close neighbours and friends in Brittany over the next year.

She said, “Whilst it has always been our intention that a lasting legacy of our partnership with Showcase Scotland in 2022 would be closer working between partners in Wales and Scotland and more opportunities to welcome Scottish artists to Wales, we are delighted that sharing the stage with Brittany in 2023 will bring about opportunities to deepen multilateral connections with our Celtic cousins. And in particular to work alongside our sister agency Spectacle Vivant en Bretagne”

With a shared cultural and linguistic heritage, Wales has many connections with Brittany and has collaborated frequently in the past, through culture and beyond. Longstanding cultural partnerships, such as the one between BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Orchestre Symphonique de Bretagne, and participation of many of artists from Wales in the Festival Interceltique de Lorient over the years have been underpinned by a commitment made by both Welsh and Breton Governments to support sustainable cultural collaborations.

Wales Arts International would like to thank all the Welsh and Scottish partners who contributed to the success of Wales presence at Showcase Scotland 2022.

To find out more about what Welsh artists got up to in Celtic Connections, tune into BBC 2 Wales at 20:00 on Saturday 19 February for Wales at Celtic Connections presented by Bethan Rhiannon, and watch Gŵyl Cwlwm Celtaidd: Blwyddyn Cymru on S4C, presented by Eve Goodman and Gwilym Bowen Rhys.

Lisa Gwilym’s fantastic BBC Radio Cymru programme from 9 February is available on catch up, and Bethan Elfyn and Celtic Heartbeat with Frank Hennessy will also be featuring performances from Celtic Connections over the coming weeks.