EDINBURGH International Festival yesterday unveiled plans to light up Scotland’s capital in defiance of the restrictions forced on arts and culture by COVID-19.
Working with all of Scotland’s national performing arts companies and a long list of individual artists, and in partnership with Edinburgh’s other summer festivals, the EIF has used venues that would usually be filled to capacity as the sets for films of specially-commissioned performances that will be made available online.
This coming weekend, those same venues, and other civic spaces that are usually thronged in August, will be illuminated by beacons of light shining into the night sky and illuminating the dark interiors of theatres and concert halls unable to welcome their customary international audiences.
The shows, concerts and installations, created within the restrictions of social distancing and other health safety measures, are presented under the banner My Light Shines On, a line from the lyric of the 1991 hit single Moving On Up, by Primal Scream, which features the vocals of Bobby Gillespie and the late Denise Johnson.
Extracts from many of the performances, including concerts by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra, dancers from Scottish Ballet on the stage of Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre, a new filmed version of Menotti’s short opera The Telephone by Scottish Opera and a “love letter to Scottish theatre” directed by film-maker Hope Dickson Leach for the National Theatre of Scotland, will be included in a one-hour gala broadcast on BBC Scotland TV and the Festival’s YouTube Channel this Saturday, August 8, which should have been the 2020 Festival’s opening night. The gala premiere will be hosted by broadcaster Kirsty Wark and SCO cellist Su-a Lee and the complete shows and concerts will be available to view online thereafter.
The chamber orchestra will be performing with pianist Paul Lewis, in a rare example of a concert scheduled for the 2020 programme that will go ahead, marking the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth with the composer’s Piano Concerto No.2. The RSNO’s programme, with guest soloist mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill, celebrates Mahler’s 160th birthday and includes his Ruckert-Lieder and Symphony No.7.
Scottish Ballet, which has blazed a trail with its embrace of digital technology, has filmed its dancers on the stage of the Festival Theatre in short works that include a new piece by company member Nicholas Shoesmith and an a short work by the choreographer of last year’s Herald Angel-winning The Crucible, Helen Pickett, called Trace, which featured in the Festival’s Dance Odysseys in 2013.
Composer Gian Carlo Menotti himself directed the production of The Telephone seen at Edinburgh’s King’s Theatre in 1984. Scottish Opera’s new take on it, replaces dial-up with smart phones and was filmed by director Daisy Evans in the bar of the theatre with young singers Soraya Mafi and Jonathan McGovern.
The National Theatre of Scotland has drawn on stars from previous productions, including James McArdle and Siobhan Redmond for Ghost Light, which was conceived by Hope Dickson Leach, dramaturg and former Traverse artistic director Philip Howard and NTS artistic director Jackie Wylie, and filmed on the empty stage of the Festival Theatre, drawing on the work of J. M. Barrie, Jackie Kay and David Greig.
The Festival Theatre is one of the venues that will be illuminated across the capital this coming weekend, in a light installation by Kate Bonney and Simon Hayes, whose work has previously featured in Pitlochry’s Enchanted Forest. Military Tattoo venue the Castle Esplanade and Fringe mecca Bristo Square are also part of the city-wide project.
While concerts of chamber music from the archive will feature on BBC Radio 3 during August in lieu of the customary live broadcasts, the Festival is hosting a season of behind-closed-doors events at its home, The Hub. They will include recitals by Scotland’s Dunedin Consort and Hebrides Ensemble, singer Mark Padmore and pianist Angela Hewitt, transmitted on the EIF YouTube Channel and via a sound installation in Princes Street Gardens allowing socially-distanced audiences to hear them on a walk or a picnic from August 10 – 28. Other specially-made live performances made available digitally will include Edinburgh Festival Chorus singing Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, and new music from viola player Lawrence Power, bassist Nikita Naumov, folk violinist Aidan O’Rourke and Glasgow guitarist and singer Honeyblood.
Launching My Light Shines On yesterday, Festival director Fergus Linehan said: “For the first time since lockdown, orchestras, ballet companies, traditional musicians, theatre ensembles and designers have come together to perform in and light up the venues they love. This has been achieved with great care to ensure the safety of all involved. It represents a cautious but essential step towards the re-emergence of the performing arts in our country.”
Scottish Government Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop added: “It’s wonderful to see that despite the difficulties the world is facing, the Edinburgh International Festival has harnessed that creative spirit to create a digital programme focusing on Scottish artists, once again bringing them to the global audience“
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