Brexit has inflicted incredible damage to Scotland’s and the UK’s music and performing arts industry. Free movement across borders that allowed major touring companies and young traditional musicians to work across Europe has been replaced by bureaucracy, red tape and costs that make these musicians, previously valued for a shared European cultural celebration, no longer able to work in Europe. Brexit has cut Scotland’s music and performing arts, along with our food and drink industries, out of what it meant to be European and enjoy what we gave and received from our fellow Europeans
Pretending that Europe has been exchanged for a global footprint is nonsensical reasoning because there can be no global reach without Europe. Scotland’s Celtic heritage stretches from the Indo-European land bridge to Iceland. Scotland’s music has influenced both classical music and jazz. Culture does not exist in a sealed vacuum, it borrows, teaches, exchanges and learns from contact and cross collaboration.
All images are screenshots from eu+me – music and the performing arts
