Edinburgh International Festival Archives - Page 2 of 2

National Youth Choir of Scotland – Usher Hall

15Aug

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

National Youth Choir of Scotland – Usher Hall

If you were lucky enough to get to the Usher Hall by 4pm on Sunday, you will have joined a lively run-down (and audience challenge) detailing how and why Scottish National Youth Choir is so exemplary. The choir caters for 0-25-years-old. It is truly outstanding thanks to the skill, playfulness and overall enthusiasm of Artistic Director and Conductor, Christopher Bell who formed the choir in 1996. In 2012, the National Youth Choir of Scotland (NYCoS) became the first youth company to win a Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award in the Ensemble category. Bell calls the company’s methods “stealth teaching” and the games-based learning is just up my street. Balls, hula hoops and old-fashioned clapping games get the rhythm and mood started and the children learn without knowing it. “S...

Lady Blackbird – Festival Theatre – Edinburgh International Festival

14Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Lady Blackbird – Festival Theatre – Edinburgh International Festival

Ending her three week long debut album Black Acid Soul tour, LA-based Lady Blackbird, AKA Marley Munroe, brought it home in fine style at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre tonight cheered on by a packed crowd of adoring fans. On what was her first visit to the Capital, and hopeful not her last, it was clearly an emotional moment for the artist and her band as the evening came to a climactic end with tears and a group hug on stage. And why not, it has been a long time coming, as she reached out her hand to the crowd she explained, ‘I’m closing one of the most incredible chapters in my life’. The set list is made up of many of the tracks from Black Acid Soul, released in 2021. The concert features jazz covers such as Blackbird, which Monroe took as her stage name, and also some folk covers alo...

12Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

As Far As Impossible – Lyceum Theatre

The stage is set with a giant white cloth, held up in places by cables and pulleys. It looks like snow covered mountains, peaceful and serene. This is what ‘the impossible’ looks like from far away. Like a picture postcard. But look closer. Four actors of different nationalities and a drummer combine at various times under, in or in front of the vast cloth structure, which is raised, dropped, illuminated in various ways. This is a land that most of us do not know of, or ignore, or just wish were not there. But it is. A land visited by aid workers and humanitarians, at least for as long as their sanity can stand it. In the face of civil war, genocide, mass killings how long can anyone’s mind last before cracking apart? And yet, incredibly, some are drawn back again and again to the...

12Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Food – The Studio

I am one of the ‘lucky’ ones chosen to be seated at a gargantuan table fully laid out with plates and glasses and cutlery, with about 30 other guests, the rest of the ‘audience’ are seated around us on three sides. Geoff Sobelle dressed as a fancy waiter struts around us, in charge of proceedings. He pretends to light a candle and pulls it on a cloth into the middle of the table. Of course, it is only a little pretend candle; no one is allowed to use a naked light in theatre land these days. In fact, as he pulls it, it falls over, so we can all see that it is a little battery powered prop, there is a ripple of laughter. Sobelle shrugs with a grin. Any so it begins. As the lights drop lower and lower and we are asked to close our eyes and are taken on a journey with Sobelle’s sonorous vo...

Trojan Women – Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

11Aug

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

Trojan Women – Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Phenomenal. Raw. A fusion of golden talent across time and space. Combining Euripides’ play from 415 BCE with outstanding modern expertise is genius. Jung Jae-Il, the musical director, composer, is behind the success of Parasite (2019) and the cult TV series Squid Game; Scott Zielinski has lit more than 300 productions with numerous leading directors; renowned video/projection designer, Austin Switser, swamps and caresses the senses in magnificent style; Cho Myung Hee’s clean-lined, gorgeous, set is drop-dead wonderful; Wen Hui’s choreography is faultless; Kim Moo-Hong’s costumes … I want one. And then, of course, there’s the wonderful writer, Bae Sam-Sik who is acclaimed for outstanding structure, profundity and eloquence. The direction and conception is down to Ong Keng Sen, whose produc...

11Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Thrown – Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Set against the backdrop of the obscure art of Backhold wrestling, Glasgow writer Nat McClearly teams up with director and performer Johnny McKnight to create this none-too-subtle play about racism in Scotland today. Backhold wrestling, a bit like Sumo in a kilt, still thrives at Highland games around Scotland, and as Scotland wrestles with it’s own national identity, this play questions if we really are ready to welcome in outsiders or are we still a colloquial, backward-looking and fundamentally racist nation. Each of the five characters in this play has their own motivations and stories to tell and demons to deal with: Coach Pamela is military in her instruction, ‘validation comes from within’ yet her own identity fears are just barely hidden and ready to burst out. Imogen, a ...

Cecile McLorin Salvant – Usher Hall, Edinburgh

9Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Cecile McLorin Salvant – Usher Hall, Edinburgh

That was – Emotional! What a voice. The power and attack of Salvant’s vocal is what strikes you the most. Controlled and yet, something else, hard to explain, at first soaring, vast balloon-like and then at other times like a bird; small, fragile, vulnerable. Miami-born, Salvant at the age of 33 is right at the top of her game, full of the confidence that a library of prestigious awards and accolades brings, and jazz flair that has made her a sell-out draw around the world. Her current album Melusine draws on her Haitian and French heritage, and sung partly in French, whilst her previous highly acclaimed 2022 album Ghost Song features interpretations of tracks by Kate Bush and Sting. In a recent interview with The List, she promised that this concert would be, ‘crazy and sponta...

Edinburgh International Festival Opening Concert: Buddha Passion – Usher Hall, Edinburgh

7Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Edinburgh International Festival Opening Concert: Buddha Passion – Usher Hall, Edinburgh

This was – A brilliant, joyful opening of the 2023 International Festival One of the most versatile musicians in the world, Academy-award winning (score to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Tan Dun conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Edinburgh Festival Chorus in the Scottish premiere of his own extraordinary Buddha Passion (2018). And what an amazing and joyful spectacle this was, which had the massed ranks of junior and adult choristers laughing and clapping, clinking pebbles together, tinkling Chinese bells and singing alternatively between ancient Sanskrit and Chinese. And before them the spectacle of the National Orchestra in full flow. A very effective subtitling allowed the packed house to appreciate the piece fully. This is a treatise on the joy ...

Edinburgh International Festival Announces 2021 Programme

3Jun

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

Edinburgh International Festival Announces 2021 Programme

Edinburgh International Festival, the world’s leading performing arts festival, pioneers the return of live performance in Scotland from 7th – 29th August with a diverse programme of UK and international artists. This return to live performance marks a significant turning point for Scotland's cultural sector by providing a platform for artists to return to the stage after over a year. The Festival's ambition is to pave the way for other organisations to rebuild their own live performance programmes and to re-establish Edinburgh as a global centre for culture. The 2021 programme features over 170 classical and contemporary music, theatre, opera, dan...

2Sep

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

Scotland

Declan – Traverse Theatre

Kieran Hurley’s powerful theatre work Mouthpiece has been transformed into a 25-minute short film Declan for Traverse Theatre’s online festival in lieu of the Edinburgh International Festival. Angus Taylor revives the titular role of Declan with ferocity, anger and tenderness. Although the script is only altered slightly from the original theatre work, the relationship between Declan and failing playwright Libby is compromised here, but we gain a more intimate insight into Declan’s home life and lived experience. Transferring Mouthpiece to film has allowed Declan’s artwork to come forth among animated sections of plot. Nisan Yetkin’s stunning and emotional animations bring interactions to life between Declan and an unseen Libby, driving the relationship between them with written dial...