Karine Polwart

2pm – 5.40pm (Performances on the hour – duration approx. 30mins. 4 performances total.)

All First Footin’ daytime events are free and un-ticketed, we encourage people to explore venues throughout the city centre and discover the eclectic range of performers and live music.

Join acclaimed folk singer and songwriter, Karine Polwart, Choir Director, Stephen Deazley, and 200 community singers for Come Away In - an atmospheric First Footin’ event at St. Giles’ Cathedral on New Year’s Day.

Part performance, part turning-of-the-year ceremony, Come Away In takes the Scottish tradition of First Footin’ as its inspiration. The opening of the door to friends and strangers alike is a nationwide gesture of hospitality, and an invocation of refuge, neighbourliness and shared resources. Celebrate crossing the threshold of the New Year in the embrace of massed voices and song, in the resonant, historic space of the city’s 900-year-old cathedral.