Edinburgh International Festival-goers are well used to seeing the Dunard Fund credited as one of a small handful of principal sponsors, without which some of the most ambitious productions would be unaffordable.

It is no exaggeration to say the Dunard Fund’s founder and chair Carol Colburn Grigor, the arts philanthropist and former concert pianist, is the most significant figure in the Scottish arts world, using her family wealth to support major institutions who employ hundreds of artists and without whom the International Festival would be a shadow of itself.

It’s for that reason that her support for two other hugely ambitious projects costing millions raised fears the fund could be exhausted and less able to continue supporting performing arts in the same generous way as before. Again, it is no understatement to say that without Ms Grigor and the Dunard Fund, Edinburgh’s cultural life, and so that of Scotland as a whole, would be seriously diminished. As the creative sector would testify, being increasingly reliant on the vicissitudes of Scottish Government munificence, or otherwise, is an extremely uncomfortable and unpredictable place to be.

Read more John McLellan

One of the two Dunard-backed projects is the conversion of the crumbling Old Royal High School building on Calton Hill into a medium-sized concert hall and arts venue, and initially as a new home for the St Mary’s Music School. Plans to turn it into a luxury hotel designed by the late Gareth Hoskins were finally rejected in 2020, but since then St Mary’s has withdrawn from the project with planning........

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