Search: 11-20 - Edinburgh Festival Guide

Virgin Money Fireworks Concert
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Garry Walker  ConductorMusorgsky  Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. Ravel)
Join the city of Edinburgh in a celebration of summer festivals, inspirational music and breathtaking pyrotechnics as the Virgin Money Fireworks Concert brings the Edinburgh International Festival to a resplendent conclusion.
Set against the magnificent backdrop of Edinburgh’s iconic Castle, the evening brings together the stirring playing of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra with a thrilling concert-long fireworks display, specially choreographed to enhance the musical experience.
This year’s centrepiece is Musorgsky’s dazzling orchestral showpiece Pictures at an Exhibition. Its vivid musical depictions of Russian paintings, conveyed in virtuoso playing and barnstorming brass fanfares, are the perfect match for an astonishing display of pyrotechnics.
Visit eif.co.uk/virginmoneyfireworks for up-to-the-minute news, features and advice on how to make the best of your evening at the Virgin Money Fireworks Concert.
Please note that there are special ticket sales arrangements for this event.
Sunday 1 September 9.00pm
TicketsRoss Theatre (seated) £27.50Princes Street Gardens (standing) £12.50, priority entry £17.50
45 minutes approximately
eif.co.uk/virginmoneyfireworks
Sponsored byVirgin Money

Virgin Money Fireworks Concert
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Garry Walker  ConductorMusorgsky  Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. Ravel)
Join the city of Edinburgh in a celebration of summer festivals, inspirational music and breathtaking pyrotechnics as the Virgin Money Fireworks Concert brings the Edinburgh International Festival to a resplendent conclusion.
Set against the magnificent backdrop of Edinburgh’s iconic Castle, the evening brings together the stirring playing of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra with a thrilling concert-long fireworks display, specially choreographed to enhance the musical experience.
This year’s centrepiece is Musorgsky’s dazzling orchestral showpiece Pictures at an Exhibition. Its vivid musical depictions of Russian paintings, conveyed in virtuoso playing and barnstorming brass fanfares, are the perfect match for an astonishing display of pyrotechnics.
Visit eif.co.uk/virginmoneyfireworks for up-to-the-minute news, features and advice on how to make the best of your evening at the Virgin Money Fireworks Concert.
Please note that there are special ticket sales arrangements for this event.
Sunday 1 September 9.00pm
TicketsRoss Theatre (seated) £27.50Princes Street Gardens (standing) £12.50, priority entry £17.50
45 minutes approximately
eif.co.uk/virginmoneyfireworks
Sponsored byVirgin Money

Cellist Peter Gregson’s new work To Dream Again unfolds after a series of interactions between the audience and bespoke data systems. Created especially for this world premiere, these audience interactions mean that each performance develops in an entirely different way in the laboratory venue and subsequently online, where it decays until finally it can no longer be heard. Quite the matter of life and data.
Peter Gregson is equally at home collaborating with some of the most exciting musicians working today (including Gabriel Prokofiev, Daníel Bjarnason and Max Richter) as he is with world-leading technologists, ranging from the Media Lab at MIT, Microsoft Labs and his own Google-funded incubator, The Electric Creative Colab. Commissioned by New Media Scotland, To Dream Again was developed during a six-month residency.
‘pushing the classical performance envelope’ Classical Music
Monday 19 & Tuesday 20, Thursday 22 – Saturday 24 August 9.00pmNew Media Scotland
Tickets £15
1 hour approximately
eif.co.uk/petergregson
Supported by the Alt-w Fund with investment from the Centre for Design Informatics
 
 
 

Harry Christophers and The Sixteen return to the Festival to perform magnificent vocal repertoire by Handel. Internationally acclaimed Handelian and Festival favourite Rosemary Joshua joins as soloist for the cantata Silete venti. The concert concludes with perhaps Handel’s best-loved choral work, his uplifting Dixit Dominus. ‘sang with the same combination of talent and unbridled joy that has earned them worldwide fame.’ The Guardian‘ a tiny soundbite of Heaven’ The Times Sponsored by Classic FM

The Poet Speaks
Homage to Allen Ginsberg
Performed by Pattie Smith and Philip Glass
Two of the pillars of contemporary music come together for an intimate evening of poetry, music and song in tribute to their friend, the great Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg.
Punk poet and provocateur Patti Smith performs both her own and Ginsberg’s poetry, with accompaniment and solo pieces for piano from founding father of minimalism Philip Glass.
Renowned as one of the originators of the Beat movement, Ginsberg tirelessly championed the work of his friends Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. His raw, visceral poems, including Howl, Kaddish andWichita Vortex Sutra, range from forceful fury to profound spirituality.
As a backdrop to the evening’s event, Smith and Glass have curated a collage of images, paintings and photographs, projected live on stage, that reveals the richness of Ginsberg’s achievements.
Tuesday 13 August 8.30pmThe Edinburgh Playhouse
Tickets£35 £28 £22 £16 £14 £12
1 hour 30 minutes approximately
eif.co.uk/poetspeaks
Supported byEwan and Christine Brown

The internationally renowned Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra makes a two-concert visit to the Festival under chief conductor Mariss Jansons, acclaimed for his blistering performances and for his cultured interpretations that shine fresh light on major classical works.
Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’ Symphony is one of the composer’s best-loved creations, a moving piece on the theme of forbidden love whose grand, sweeping melodies are full of emotional turbulence and impassioned suffering.
By way of contrast, before the interval Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto shows the composer at his most luminous and lyrical, and its atmosphere of serene contemplation is the ideal setting for the poiseand grace of Mitsuko Uchida’s exquisite pianism.
‘one of the most cultivated orchestral sounds in Europe’ The Guardian
Sunday 11 August 7.30pmUsher Hall
Tickets£42 £35 £26 £24 £17 £12
1 hour 40 minutes approximately
eif.co.uk/tchaikovsky6
Sponsored by Capital Solutions

SisGO’s territory is minds, organs, nervous systems. Join an intimate journey into the night. Fleur Darkin merges this company of powerful dancers with the audience to create a riot of choreography. Experience new proximities to the performers in this futuristic love letter to Rudolf Laban. Soundscore includes Plastikman, Four Tet and Mortitz von Oswald. Why don’t you put your hands up for Berlin… Detroit… Edinburgh? A promenade performance in the special On StageStudio.theatre.
Saturday 17 & Sunday 18 August 9.45pm
On Stage Studio Tickets £12
eif.co.uk/sisgo

Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is one of the world’s truly great ensembles, famed for the nobility and sophistication of its orchestral sound, its velvety strings, golden brass and gleaming woodwind.
The orchestra performs one of the greatest symphonic achievements in the repertoire. Gustav Mahler never lived to hear his sombre yet visionary Ninth Symphony performed, and it is often considered his farewell to the world, with music of great tenderness as well as volcanic climaxes.
Conductor Daniele Gatti is a renowned Mahlerian and widely respected for his searching, dramatic performances that balance incisive detail with emotional resonance.
‘an experience that will stay with me for years to come.’ The Guardian
Friday 30 August 8.00pmUsher Hall
Tickets£42 £35 £26 £24 £17 £12
1 hour 30 minutes approximately
eif.co.uk/concertgebouw
Sponsored by Pinsent Masons
With additional support from Embassy of the Kingdom ofThe Netherlands, London

Best known from David Lean’s 1945 film Brief Encounter, Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto is one of the most beloved works in the orchestral repertoire, a masterpiece of poignant nostalgia and glittering bravura, brimming over with unforgettable melodies.
It launches the Russian National Orchestra’s two concerts celebrating Russian music at this year’s Festival, under the conductor who founded the ensemble in 1990, Mikhail Pletnev. Soloist Nikolai Lugansky returns after last year’s spectacular recital with violinist Leonidas Kavakos, his fizzing technique and suave elegance an ideal match for the Concerto’s dazzling demands.
Pletnev concludes the concert with Glazunov’s opulent ballet score The Seasons, a lush evocation of the passing of the Russian year, with vivid depictions of frost, spring winds, ripening corn and falling autumn.leaves.
‘Pletnev evokes music with the RNO which satisfi es the appetite and leaves you breathless.’ Kölnische Rundschau
Monday 19 August 7.30pmUsher Hall
Tickets£42 £35 £26 £24 £17 £12
1 hour 45 minutes approximately
eif.co.uk/rno1
Supported by Dunard Fund

Russian pianist Nikolai Lugansky, widely acclaimed for his performances of Rachmaninov’s piano music, brings the passionate, fiery Third Concerto to the Russian National Orchestra’s second Festival concert.
It is considered one of the most technically challenging concertos in the repertoire, combining astonishing virtuosity with passages of luminous lyricism. Lugansky’s previous performances and recordings of the Concerto have earnt him widespread admiration for his immaculate technique and glittering pianistic brilliance.
Mikhail Pletnev brings his powerful Russian-themed concerts to a resounding conclusion with the First Symphony by Russian composer and visionary Alexander Scriabin, a transcendental piece whose lush,colourful music and grand, choral fi nale form a visionary hymn to the power of art.
Tuesday 20 August 7.30pmUsher Hall
Tickets£42 £35 £26 £24 £17 £12
2 hours approximately
eif.co.uk/rno2
Supported by Dunard Fund