Venue: Usher Hall
Regarded as one of the world’s great period-instrument orchestras, and acclaimed for its pristine playing and the emotional depth of its performances, Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble brings two concerts of Schubert symphonies – some little-known, others rightly celebrated – to the Festival under its founder, French conductor Marc Minkowski.
Schubert wrote his lively First Symphony at the remarkable age of 16, and his intimate Fifth Symphony, imbued with elegance and poise, sparkles with the influence of Mozart.
To end the concert, Minkowski directs what is probably Schubert’s most famous orchestral work, the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony. Although the composer completed only two of its four movements, it is one ofhis most beautiful creations, combining searing emotion with gloriously lyrical melodies.
‘one of the most breathtakingly beautiful concerts to be heard in this country for some time’ The Guardian
Wednesday 14 August 7.30pmUsher Hall
Tickets£42 £35 £26 £24 £17 £12
1 hour 50 minutes approximately
eif.co.uk/louvre1
Venue: Usher Hall
Using instruments and playing styles that the composer himself would have known, Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble conclude their survey of Schubert symphonies with the composer’sgrandest and most ambitious contribution to orchestral music.
Schubert’s ‘Great C major’ Symphony is considered by many to be the greatest 19th-century symphony after Beethoven. It earnt its nickname because of its sheer majesty and grandeur, and its ambition is clear from the noble horn melody that opens the work right through to the urgent, restless momentum of its finale.
Before it, Minkowski conducts the charmingly lyrical Third Symphony, a.graceful, humorous piece that Schubert wrote at the age of just 18.
Thursday 15 August 7.30pmUsher Hall
Tickets£42 £35 £26 £24 £17 £12
1 hour 50 minutes approximately
eif.co.uk/louvre2
Venue: The Hub
As we spend more time online or attached to a mobile device and with increasing amounts of information being generated and captured, Jon Oberlander, Professor of Epistemics at the University of Edinburgh, explores the cost to privacy of this new technological power. Chaired by Guardian journalist Aleks Krotoski.
Saturday 10 August 2.30pm
The Hub
Tickets £6
1 hour approximately
eif.co.uk/interfaces
Special Offer – Buy a ticket for 4 to 6 events and save 20%– Buy a ticket for 7 to 10 events and save 30%
Venue: The Edinburgh Playhouse
A brilliant programme of modern masterworks from one of the hottest names in dance. Benjamin Millepied brings his new company to the UK for the first time, following his huge success as choreographer and star of Darren Aronofsky’s award-winning film Black Swan.
L.A. Dance Project is an artist collective founded by Millepied, composer Nico Muhly, art consultant Matthieu Humery, producer Charles Fabius and film producer Dimitri Chamblas. At the peak of his career, after starring with New York City Ballet, Millepied embarks on a new adventure.
‘The eclecticism is admirable. All three works look remarkably “now”. The dancers tackle their diverse challenges with skill.’ The New York Times
‘The biggest dancer to cross over into pop culture since Mikhail Baryshnikov.’ The New York Times
Quintett
William Forsythe Choreography (in collaboration with Dana Caspersen, Stephen Galloway, Jacopo Godani, Thomas McManus and Jone San Martin)Stephen Galloway Costume designerWilliam Forsythe Lighting designer
Forsythe’s seminal work, set to Gavin Bryars’s emotional and elegiac Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet, is a moving final love letter to his wife before she died.
Winterbranch
Merce Cunningham ChoreographerLa Monte Young Music (2 Sounds)Robert Rauschenberg Décor and costume designerBeverly Emmons Lighting designer (based on concepts by Robert Rauschenberg)Jennifer Goggans Staging (assisted by Robert Swinston)
This dramatic work features costumes by Robert Rauschenberg and a score, 2 Sounds, by La Monte Young. Merce Cunningham talked about two ‘facts’ of dancing – the act of falling, and unless one stayson the ground, the subsequent act of rising. The dancers engage in a series of falls, in both slow and fast motion, eventually clustering together to fall and rise united as a cohesive group.
Moving Parts
Benjamin Millepied ChoreographyNico Muhly Music compositionChristopher Wool Visual installationKate and Laura Mulleavy (of Rodarte) Costumer designersRoderick Murray Lighting designer
A new work by the group’s founding choreographer.
Saturday 24 – Monday 26 August 7.30pmThe Edinburgh Playhouse
Tickets£30 £27 £22 £17 £12 £10
2 hours approximatelyeif.co.uk/ladance
Sponsored byBaillie Gifford Investment Managers
Supported byDunard Fund
With additional support from Embassy of the United States of America, London
Monday 26 AugustTouch Tour 6.15pm Audio Described 7.15pm
Venue: The Edinburgh Playhouse
Minimalist composer Philip Glass’s magical reimagining of Jean Cocteau’s 1946 La Belle et la Bête combines the classic black and white film with live performance in a sophisticated work that is at once a touching fairy tale and a meditation on creativity.
Removing the film’s original dialogue track and score by Georges Auric, Glass replaces them withhis own scintillating music, played live by the Philip Glass Ensemble, the dialogue sung by vocalistssynchonised live with the screen.
The result boldly harnesses movie technology to create a stunning synthesis of opera and film,as Cocteau’s bewitching storytelling is matched by some of Glass’s most evocative music in anunforgettable tale of love triumphing over greed.
Saturday 10 & Sunday 11 August 8.00pmThe Edinburgh Playhouse
Tickets£35 £28 £22 £16 £14 £12
1 hour 30 minutes approximately
eif.co.uk/labelle
Supported byEwan and Christine Brown
Venue: The Hub
The Internet is the greatest store of human knowledge that has ever existed. But it is also a shopping mall, a video arcade and a Pandora’s Box. Tom Standage, digital editor of The Economist, and Emily Bell, director of the Tow Centre for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, discuss the Internet’s effect on intellect with Tim de Lisle, editor of Intelligent Life.
In association with Intelligent Life magazine.
Tuesday 13 August 5.00pm
The Hub
Tickets £6
1 hour approximately
eif.co.uk/interfaces
Special Offer – Buy a ticket for 4 to 6 events and save 20%– Buy a ticket for 7 to 10 events and save 30%
Venue: National Museum of Scotland
The Arditti Quartet’s acclaimed founding violinist, Irvine Arditti and Margaret Faultless, world-renowned specialist in historical performance practice, discuss string playing techniques past and present in the company of BBC Radio 3 presenter Tom Service.
Tuesday 27 August 2.30pm
Lecture Theatre, National Museum of Scotland
Tickets £6
1 hour approximately
Venue: The Hub
Beckett at the Festival Infinite Possibilities: Drama on the Radio Jeremy Howe, Commissioning Editor BBC Radio 4, dramatist Jonathan Myerson and writer and theatrecritic Octavian Saiu explore the influence radio has had on drama and its development as an artform. Wednesday 28 August 5.00pm1 hour approximately The Hub Tickets £6 eif.co.uk/beckettevents
Venue: Usher Hall
Quite simply one of the world’s most respected and admired tenors, Ian Bostridge is famed for the delicate expression and powerful characterisation of his elegant yet probing performances. He is joined by the esteemed German pianist Lars Vogt, well known as an international concert soloist but also a highly renowned chamber musician.
In their wide-ranging recital, they explore touching songs of love and nostalgia, by turns witty and introspective. Beginning with five brief songs by Charles Ives, from the humorous Memories to the evocative Thoreau, they continue with Brahms’s characterful Lieder Op 32, nine lyrical songs celebrating the joys of love and lamenting its loss.
Bostridge ends his recital with Schumann’s passionate Kerner Lieder Op 35, sensitive settings of 12 Romantic love poems.
‘There was an inward intensity to his singing that held the audience rapt’ Chicago Tribune
Thursday 22 August 8.00pmUsher Hall
Tickets£34 £26 £22 £19 £16 £14 £12
1 hour 30 minutes approximately
eif.co.uk/bostridge-vogt
Venue: Edinburgh Festival Theatre
Moving through constellations of wood and Plexiglas pillars, reacting in sculptor Vera Röhm’s space Cesc Gelabert recreates Gerhard Bohner’s original concept highlighting elements of dance, visual artsand music while allowing them to remain autonomous.
Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, interpreted by Keith Jarrett, provides the music for this reconstruction of Bohner’s solo Im (Goldenen) Schnitt_I, to which Gelabert brings his inimitable style and individuality as a dancer.
Monday 19 August 8.00pmMain Theatre Tickets £18 £15 £12 £10eif.co.uk/im-goldenen-schnitt