Aberdeen International Youth Festival officially began last night with the opening ceremony.
Youngsters from Jordan, America and Scotland itself took centre stage at Aberdeen University’s Elphinstone Hall for the event, which featured a crowd from the festival’s international contingent.
This is the 42nd year of the event, a celebration of youth, culture and performances featuring young people from across the globe.
This morning will see the AIYF’s street parade through the city centre, followed by the ‘festival in the city’, with performances on city streets and in it’s shopping centres.
On Sunday at 3pm, a ceremony welcoming the festival’s international performers to the north-east will be held at the Music Hall.
Stewart Aitken, AIYF CEO and artistic director, said last night’s opening event was “an opportunity to get excited about the festival”.
He hoped that attendees would “get the greater sense of all the groups from the festival coming together to make the festival as a whole”.
There were performances last night from Burns Performers, the Elbrus Dance Troupe from Jordan and the Madison Boychoir from Wisconsin, USA.
Mr Aitken added that the university venue contributed to the festival’s themes of “education, school and the arts”.
Christine Halsall, Creative Scotland’s youth arts co-ordinater, was at the ceremony to give a welcoming speech.
She said: “It’s the first year I have been to the festival. It’s really exciting, I have just come up from Glasgow so it’s lovely that it’s the same kind of atmosphere here.”
Creative Scotland this April gave more than £3.1million in funding to create nine youth arts hubs across Scotland, which is being delivered in the north-east through Aberdeen Performing Arts.
Ms Halsall added: “The festival is central to my role and will play a key role in the arts hub up here and I’m looking forward to it.”
Professor Albert Roger, Aberdeen University vice principal and an AIYF board of trustees member, said: “We support the festival because it will be a celebration of youth arts and the international, and that’s what the university is all about.
“Their performers have their main base at the university, do their rehearsals here, stay at the halls of residence, and we have a very strong music department here, music is a hugely important part of the business of the university.”