The Fruitmarket Gallery is one of Scotland’s leading contemporary art venues; open seven days a week and completely free to visit. Artists and audiences are enabled to create and experience extraordinary work across art-forms through a diverse, international programme of artistically excellent exhibitions, public commissions, and an annual festival of new music commissions and live performances.
In 2021, The Fruitmarket Gallery expanded their cultural footprint, launching a new venue for live music in Edinburgh; the Fruitmarket Warehouse. The Fruitmarket Warehouse has transformed the cultural landscape of the city, supporting musicians to develop and present new work, and enabling audiences of 144,000 people to experience extraordinary live work for free.
Music is a major part of The Fruitmarket Gallery’s annual programme and has garnered a reputation for supporting Scottish musicians early and at mid-career.
The Radcliffe Trust grant in 2024 was used to support the commission and performance fees across the 2024 edition of Deep Time, The Fruitmarket’s pioneering Festival of New Music, which took place across four nights in November 2024. With the Trust’s support, four new works were commissioned by radical, experimental music composers and musicians at crucial stages in their career. The commissioned artists all benefitted from the opportunity to respond to a rich theme, exploring the continuing relevance and legacy of John Cage and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s experimentation in music, composition and art, acting as a vehicle for them to research, develop and produce new work. The grant enabled artists to present and develop their work for Scottish audiences for the first time. It also extended the reach and the legacy of each artist’s practice with recordings of the newly commissioned works and performances at the Barbican in April 2025.