A mini-version of a prestigious international public arts event is set to be created in the small Highand village of Carrbridge. It comes with the arrival of one of the cows from the Edinburgh CowParade which is to transformed as part of a youth street art event to celebrate the annual Carrbridge Live Festival. The project has been set up by Carrbridge Community Arts whose co-ordinator, Linda Jolly said they were delighted to manage to acquire one of the cows to use as blank canvas for local youngsters to work with.

She commented: "It's a fantastic opportunity. CowParade has been hosted in cities across the world so it's really exciting for us to have a CowParade cow to come to the Highlands."

CowParade is the world's largest public art event travelling the globe from Chicargo to Cape Town, Moscow, Tokyo and Sydney. Over the past few months, more than 100 life-size fibre glass cows, painted by professional artists and community groups, have been on display around Edinburgh. More than 50 of the completed art works are due to be auctioned this Thursday. Carrbridge Community Arts set out on their cow quest with the help of Boat of Garten based events organiser, Louise Wyllie and Sally-Ann Wilkinson, director of CowParade Europe Ltd. "We had heard about CowParade being in Edinburgh and were keen to do something which would link with Carrbridge and provide an exciting new international dimension to our festival.

"We are very grateful to Louise and Sally-Ann for sharing our vision and helping us arrange for one of the Edinburgh cows to be transported to the Highlands" said Linda Jolly.

The aim is that local youngsters will turn the structure into a work of art with the help of Inverness-based street art designer, Marc Delaye. The finished results will go on display as part of the annual Carrbridge Live Festival which runs from Wednesday September 20 - Sunday September 24.

The five-day showcase event encompasses an eclectic combination of traditional and contemporary music, spectacular street carnival and jazz. Among the highlights of this year's festival are Mull Theatre with
their production of Art, Scotland's finest fiddle player, Charlie McKerron and Friends, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Winds, Sax-Ecosse and the ten-piece Edinburgh based band, Orkestra del Sol.

As well as the main festival programme, there is also a whole line up of fringe events including an exhibition of antique accordions, the display of work from a Stitches in Time art project capturing the history of Carrbridge, a Music Worx youth festival with a young bands open stage, guided walks and cycle tours, music workshops and masterclasses, a golf competition and a primary schools shinty tournament.

Included in the guest line-up is artist/illustrator, Jenny Soep who will be capturing some of the hilights of the event in a series of penned drawings which will then be kept for future exhibtion with limited edition signed prints available for sale. Meanwhile, the biggest event of the festival is the annual street carnival led by a battery of street samba drums and brass and ending with a musical grand finale including an impressive flaming fire sculpture.

"This year's festival is a special celebration as we will be marking our 10,000th audience figure in less than six year which is a major milestone and an outstanding achievement for a small community group running on a shoestring budget," said Linda Jolly.

She added that the community arts group very much appreciated all the help they had been given over the years.
"There's a huge network of arts practitioners based in Edinburgh and Glasgow who have been seeing what we are doing and provided us with encouragement and morale support which has kept us going and helped us
overcome the barriers encountered along the way.

"It is thanks to them that we have kept going and feel justified in claiming Carrbridge to be the Village of Culture."
Carrbridge Live is supported by Carrbridge Community Council, Carrbridge Tourist Association, the Cairngorms National Park, The Scottish Arts Council, Highland Council, Highland 2007 the Year of Highland Culture, HIE Inverness and East Highland CED community project funding and the UseVenue European Northern Periphery Programme.

Tickets are now on sale through the Carrbridge Community Arts Ticket Line at Tel: 01479 841211 with online bookings for Charlie McKerron & Friends, Mull Theatre and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Winds at www.thebooth.co.uk. The full Carrbridge Live 2006 programme can be found on the website link at www.carrbridge.com