Festival Director Nicola Benedetti launches the 2023 Edinburgh International Festival – 4-27 AUGUST 2023
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General reserving for the 2023 International Festival opens on Wednesday 3 May, with tickets at the moment on-sale to Members and supporters.
New Festival Director Nicola Benedetti’s first Edinburgh International Festival programme is revealed.
Benedetti units out a imaginative and prescient for the 2023 Festival to ship the deepest potential expertise, with the highest high quality performances, to the broadest potential viewers.
Following the Festival’s seventy fifth anniversary, underneath the course of a brand new Festival Director, this 12 months’s programme is themed across the query ‘where do we go from here?’.
Comprising 295 separate occasions from 4-27 August, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 options work from over 2000 native and worldwide artists from throughout 48 nations.
Edinburgh International Festival unveils an expansive programme of world-class music, opera, dance and theatre to happen from 4 – 27 August 2023. This 12 months marks the primary Festival underneath the course of recent Festival Director, Nicola Benedetti, one in all immediately’s most influential classical music artists.
With a daring ambition to reimagine how we expertise and work together with reside efficiency, Benedetti has set out a imaginative and prescient for the Festival to ship the deepest potential expertise, with the highest high quality performances, to the broadest potential viewers.
Inspired by the literature of Martin Luther King Jr, and his perception in folks’s capability to unite, the 2023 Festival is charged by the query, ‘where do we go from here?’, this expansive programme of 295 occasions, asks us to think about how the transformative energy of the humanities can have probably the most affect on society at this second.
Three central themes underpin every week of the Festival: neighborhood over chaos, hope within the face of adversity, and a perspective that’s not one’s personal – inviting audiences to think about concepts of identification, neighborhood and resilience as they expertise Edinburgh this summer time. Benedetti says, ‘After we have celebrated 75 years of our Festival, we now enter into a new phase of redefining, together, where we go next’.
Diversity, discovery and internationalism are on the coronary heart of the Edinburgh International Festival, this 12 months welcoming artists from throughout 48 nations and 6 continents to our levels. The 2023 International Festival additionally hosts three main inventive residencies with internationally famend orchestras as a part of ongoing ambitions to more and more interact with town of Edinburgh and scale back the quantity of journey required for the worldwide artists. This 12 months’s Festival additionally gives an unprecedented emphasis on a deepened viewers expertise, by means of performances for younger folks and households, participatory occasions, in-conversations, and intimate performances in casual efficiency areas.
Highlights of the programme embody:
Two distinctive programmes from powerhouse dance firm, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. The performances showcase latest works from the corporate’s dynamic choreographers in addition to basic repertoire by founder, Alvin Ailey, together with one piece that includes native Scottish dancers alongside the skilled firm.
An thrilling new sequence in The Hub, the International Festival’s dwelling on the Royal Mile. In a primary for the International Festival, the house can be taken over by afternoon and night casual occasions and live shows that talk on to the 2023 Festival’s themes. Performers embody: Palestinian singer Nai Barghouti, Scottish violinist Catriona Price, the Aga Khan Master Musicians celebrating music from the Silk Road commerce route and a particular Festival fee impressed by Martin Luther King Jr’s visionary ultimate speech, from Detroit-born bassist and home musician of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Endea Owens.
The Budapest Festival Orchestra, led by conductor Iván Fischer, in residence on the International Festival throughout 4 charming live shows. A spotlight efficiency can be Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony introduced in a casual efficiency within the spherical, with the viewers seated on beanbags, scattered amongst the orchestra. The live shows additionally embody an all-Hungarian programme of works with Sir András Schiff and the NYCOS National Girls Choir, Weber and Mendelssohn, a live performance celebrating three Nineteenth-century Romantics and an in-conversation between Fischer and Nicola Benedetti exploring orchestras of the long run and the orchestra’s ongoing dedication to neighborhood.
Three UK premieres from genre-defining stars of worldwide theatre: Barrie Kosky’s The Threepenny Opera from the Berliner Ensemble, Brazilian movie and theatre director Christiane Jatahy’s Dusk, primarily based on Lars Von Trier’s Dogville, and Tiago Rodrigues’ As Far As Impossible, recounting the on a regular basis lives of humanitarian employees in battle zones.
One of Latin America’s best orchestras, the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, in residence on the International Festival. Bringing its famed younger ensemble of gamers aged 18-25, they’re joined by conductors Gustavo Dudamel and Rafael Payare for a sequence of performances, together with music from throughout the Americas and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
An epic new manufacturing of Pina Bausch’s acclaimed choreography of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, with a solid of over 30 dancers from 14 African nations, introduced in a double invoice with duet frequent floor[s] from Germaine Acogny and Malou Airaudo.
The London Symphony Orchestra in residence, comprising a programme centered round hope: a live performance of choral works from Szymanowski and Brahms; a cinematic programme that includes Principal Guest Conductor Gianandrea Noseda, Messiaen’s sensational Turangalîla Symphony; and an intimate perception into the musical world of the London Symphony Orchestra, introduced with an on-stage dialog from Nicola Benedetti and Sir Simon Rattle.
The most substantial programme of Korean artists within the International Festival’s 76-year historical past, in celebration of 140 years of diplomatic relations between Korea and the UK. Performances embody the KBS Symphony Orchestra of their first UK look; International Festival debuts from multi-award-winning performers, pianist Yeol Eum Son and violinist Clara-Jumi Kang; first prize winners of the International Mozart Competition, the Novus String Quartet; and a fusion of historical Korean storytelling, Ok-pop and Greek tragedy in Trojan Women by the National Changgeuk Company of Korea. Trojan Women options unique music by Ok-pop producer and Parasite and Squid Game composer Jung Jae–il, in collaboration with famend pansori grasp Ahn Sook-sun.
Immersive works The Lost Lending Library from Punchdrunk Enrichment, welcoming younger folks aged 6-11 (and their dad and mom or carers) right into a magical touring library; and FOOD, an enchantingly absurd ceremonial dinner from New York City-based theatre-maker Geoff Sobelle. The uniquely Scottish play, the National Theatre of Scotland’s Thrown, from author Nat McCleary underneath director Johnny McKnight involves the Festival as a part of its world premiere season, and all three productions will run for your entire period of the Festival.
Operatic works together with a live performance efficiency of Tannhäuser, the one main Wagner opera that has not been carried out on the International Festival. Wagner knowledgeable and Edinburgh native Sir Donald Runnicles conducts the Deutsche Oper Berlin, that includes American tenor Clay Hilley making his position debut as Tannhäuser; Mozart’s enchanting masterpiece The Magic Flute carried out in live performance by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Chorus; and a radical retelling of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle introduced by Theatre of Sound, reimagining the connection between Bluebeard and Judith as a husband and spouse dealing with the fact of dwelling with dementia while celebrating their lengthy love.
A up to date dance programme that includes Phaedra/Minotaur, a sensational double invoice from opera and theatre director Deborah Warner and choreographer Kim Brandstrup, with Benjamin Britten’s stirring ultimate cantata Phaedra, and the return of maverick duo Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar’s acclaimed L-E-V, with the ultimate set up of their acclaimed Love Cycle Trilogy, Chapter 3: The Brutal Journey of the Heart.
Ogresse, the UK premiere of a brand new musical journey of fable and music from three-time Grammy Award-winner Cécile McLorin Salvant. Cécile additionally performs within the Usher Hall for a particular live performance fusing jazz with blues, theatre and storytelling.
World-leading orchestras are centre stage in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall, together with: the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Chorus with a live performance efficiency of The Magic Flute, that includes a newly commissioned narration learn by Thomas Quasthoff.
A up to date music programme that includes electro-pop icon Alison Goldfrapp; sitar virtuoso Anoushka Shankar; founding member of The Velvet Underground, John Cale; indie chart-topper Jake Bugg; Japanese folks artist Ichiko Aoba; award-winning Irish neo-folk group Lankum; Grammy Award-winning bluegrass band Nickel Creek; and experimental digital icon Matthew Herbert.
Intimate morning recitals at The Queen’s Hall that includes pianists Mao Fujita, Leif Ove Andsnes and Bertrand Chamayou; vocal recitals from singers together with Julia Bullock with pianist Bretton Brown, Iestyn Davies, Catriona Morison; and chamber music from the Isidore String Quartet, the Amatis Trio, Jupiter Ensemble and extra.
Nicola Benedetti, Festival Director, Edinburgh International Festival stated: ‘“Where do we go from here?” At a time of giant international change and problem, we are going to hear highly effective and various views of artists from internationally.
‘Edinburgh International Festival has long been dedicated to advocating world-class performing art and innovating new ways to bring it to audiences. I am immensely proud of this year’s programme, and sit up for increasing on this legacy in 2023’.
Selected Special Events
The Opening Celebration welcomes everybody to participate within the enjoyable, with a free celebration {of professional} and neighborhood music-making from artists from throughout Scotland in Princes Street Gardens.
On the ultimate weekend of the Festival, the backyard at Charlotte Square can be opened to the general public as a musical oasis, the place a soundscape of recorded music from the International Festival classical music live shows may be loved in a collective listening expertise for all.
As a part of the International Festival’s ongoing dedication to accessibility, the 2023 programme consists of 25 accessible performances, together with 9 audio described performances, six BSL interpreted performances, seven captioned performances and two relaxed performances.
In 2023, the Edinburgh International Film Festival returns as a bespoke movie programme hosted by the Edinburgh International Festival. The movie programme celebrates the work of outstanding native and international filmmakers and ensures the flame of EIFF burns vibrant for future generations of passionate cinema followers. The full programme can be introduced in June.