A collaborative project, bringing together culurally diverse artists including musicians, a dancer, visual and spoken-word artist, and a film-maker.

Together they explore the rich diversity of their arts, cultures, life-stories and experiences creating a vibrant and moving mutimedia performance.

The ethos behind the project is to be inclusive, supportive and diverse. To provide a safe and engaging space for the artists, participants and audiences, and to work toward improving the understanding across diverse communities while breaking down barriers through music and the arts.

Through this practice we can also provide workshops for outreach events at youth and community groups, we are developing similar activities to be included alongside our main performances at festivals.

This could be as a complete package or negotiated separately with the workshop facilitators for:

Percussion with Jose Rojas in Latin percussion and Erfan Imandar in Persian/Iranian styles; S

Singing with Esther Swift Celtic/Folk and Aref Ghorbani Persian/Iranian styles;

Dance with Andrea Torres in Chilean and Latin traditional styles.

“By reflecting on our perception of ‘the other’ we can shift our view that who we see as ‘them’ and not ‘us’, we can not only  become aware that, we are also ‘the other’ , but that ultimately we are all human”.

Our Upcoming Gigs

The artists have been funded by Creative Scotland, the EPAD Practice Support Award, Edinburgh Council Diversity & Inclusion Fund, Scotland Foundation, Hinriccksen Foundation, and a private doner.

The first support through Creative Scotland’s Creative Development fund, and the EPAD Practice Support Fund, brought together eight wonderful musicians in 2021 to work on five compositions, as a means of consolidating this project, with further funding leading to a studio recording of six compositions in January 2023.

Followed by a CD launch at Pianodrome, Edinburgh which was filmed and then streamed as part of the Festival of Migration in June. The Other then performed at Fringe by the Sea, North Berwick in August.

In January 2024 we were invited to perform at Celtic Connections in Glasgow, receiving a very positive review from Fiona Shepherd of the Scotsman.

In August of 2024 as part of the Creative Scotland Made in Scotland Showcase we performed three shows at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, with capacity audiences, a standing ovation and great reviews.

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Founded by Iain Mackechnie

Scottish, Edinburgh based guitarist.

As a volunteer guitar tutor with youth groups in Edinburgh, and teaching English as a foreign language to immigrants and those with a refugee background, then a chance meeting with George Casley from the WOMAD Foundation at WOMAD festival, I went on to secure funding to provide music workshops at various youth groups and community centres in Edinburgh. During this period I also met 4 musicians from Iran, and we collaborated on new compositions which was the start of what has become ‘The Other’. Our first performance was at the Pianodrome during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2019. The Iranian musicians were also part of Musicians in Exile, based in Glasgow, who went on to receive the National Diversity Award in 2019.

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Our live performances

The outcome for the first funded collaboration was a performance for The Pianodrome Sessions, recorded and filmed in their unique 100-seat amphitheatre in Granton, Edinburgh, on 29 June 2021. This was also streamed during the Refugee Festival on 17 July 2021.

With further performances at the following prestigious events:

Fringe by the Sea, North Berwick, Aug 2023

Celtic Connections, Glasgow, Jan 2024

Edinburgh Fringe, Aug 2024

The Other are planning to tour UK festivals in 2026 , with additional dates across Scotland supported by Touring Network Scotland.

Watch the Performance

We are incredibly lucky to have brought together these multi-talented and diverse artists from around the world. In 2026 we will be recording new tracks, and are currently putting a tour together across UK festivals, and building contacts for international performances.

Click below to see our current line-up.

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