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| Nicola Benedetti (Photo: Laurence Winram) |
The full programme for this year’s Edinburgh International Festival has been released, the third festival under Nicola Benedetti’s artistic directorship. This year celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus with performances of Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah at the closing concert. The opening concert of the festival features the Edinburgh Festival Chorus alongside the Monteverdi Choir and the National Youth Choir of Scotland in a rare complete performance of John Tavener’s The Veil of the Temple, which will only be the second time the work has been performed complete in the UK.
In celebration of the UK/Poland 2025 season, NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra will be one of the festival’s resident orchestras, and there will be Wrocław Baroque Ensemble, VOŁOSI, Piotr Anderszewski, Bomsori Kim to 2024’s BBC Young Musician of the Year, Ryan Wang.
Opera Queensland bring their staging of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice with Iestyn Davies and Samantha Clarke, in a staging that brings together acrobatics and video projections, with Australian contemporary circus company Circa joining with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and a chorus from Scottish Opera. A cross-genre stage work, Book of Mountains and Seas fuses opera with puppetry, composed by Huang Ruo, one of the most exciting figures of contemporary opera, with the Danish choir Ars Nova Copenhagen, joined by an ensemble of percussionists and puppeteers.
Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra are resident at the festival, giving three concerts including a concert performance of Puccini’s Suor Angelica. Maxim Emelyanychev and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra continue their exploration of Mozart operas with La Clemenza di Tito and a cast including Tara Erraught and Angela Brower.
Also resident at the festival will be Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra 2, and other visitors include the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, and the NCPA Orchestra from Beijing. Aurora Orchestra makes its International Festival debut with Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, in the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment will be combining hip hop with Bach in Breaking Bach with choreographer Kim Brandstrup.
Scottish Ballet will be presenting a new full-length dance work from choreographer Sophie Laplane and director James Bonas, Mary, Queen of Scots will feature music by Mikael Karlsson & Michael P Atkinson performed by the Scottish Ballet Orchestra. The Scottish premiere of Figures in Extinction sees Nederlands Dans Theater in collaborating with choreographer Crystal Pite and theatremaker Simon McBurney.
Over 50,000 tickets (more than half of all tickets available for the 2025 International Festival) are priced at £30 or under. Thousands of free tickets are available for young musicians, NHS staff and community groups, and £10 Affordable Tickets are available for all performances for anyone who needs them.
This year, for the first time, a Dementia-Friendly concert will be presented for people living with dementia, their caregivers, family and friends. The wider 2025 programme features 33 accessible performances, including nine audio described performances, seven BSL interpreted performances, thirteen captioned performances and four relaxed performances.
Full details from the festival’s website.
