Our Aims

• To create a cultural project in Ayrshire that will attract people from all over the world to celebrate and study 'The Traditional Arts'.
  
  
• To use this event as a focal point for activity throughout Ayrshire on a year round basis.
  
  
• To research, document, promote, encourage, facilitate and nurture Ayrshire's 'folklife and folkways'.
  
  
• To encourage a wider understanding and practice of artistic expression found in local, regional, ethnic, and related traditional folk cultures
  
  
• To encourage dialogue on issues of race and social inclusion using the traditional arts as the 'Common Ground'.
  
  
• To accomplish the above through educational workshops and classes, apprenticeships, recordings and public presentation.

Common Ground Scotland is founded on the premise that there is a common human thread unifying all people expressed in their artistic traditions. Its mission is to make this thread a path towards human understanding, tolerance, fulfilment and enjoyment.

In furtherance of this mission Common Ground Scotland will:

• Establish and maintain a music and arts community where master musicians, artists, craftspeople and creative thinkers from diverse backgrounds will provide a quality learning experience for an audience ever increasing in size, diversity and influence.
• Provide ongoing opportunities to teach and learn various musical instruments and art forms representing varied ethnic and cultural traditions.
• Sponsor musical and artistic events featuring members of cultural and ethnic groups who are marginalised in our society or who may be in conflict with each other.
• Encourage and facilitate dialogue that helps people discover the ways in which our artistic common ground unites us, in order that the world might become a more humane place.

Ira Zepp

The founding of Common Ground on the Hill in the USA, can be traced back to Ira Zepp, a man who encouraged his students to get involved with civil rights. one of those students was Walt Michael who went on to found Common Ground on the Hill. A prayer for Common Ground on the Hill, by Ira Zepp