- The Edinburgh International Festival expands 2024 programme, including gigs from Declan McKenna, Nadine Shah and Lisa O’Neill, and keynote speaking events from Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, rapper and activist Akala, and Invisible Women author Caroline Criado Perez
- Music reaches into Edinburgh neighbourhoods and unites artists and audiences as never before. Activity includes a VR experience in a community hub in Southwest Edinburgh, a mass outdoor celebration with 250 performers of all ages at the Scottish Parliament as part of the world-first Healing Arts Scotland week and pop-up performances in Edinburgh hospitals
- Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti’s second year as Festival Director promises an exhilarating 24-day celebration of the arts in Edinburgh, featuring world-class artists spanning opera, dance, music, and theatre from August 2-25
New events have been added to the 2024 Edinburgh International Festival programme, culminating in a total of 167 performances across 24 days from the world’s leading performers in opera, dance, music and theatre.
Anchored by the theme ‘Rituals That Unite Us’, this year’s International Festival is an invitation for both artists and audiences to come together and celebrate the powerful impact live performance and collective experiences have on us all.
Three gigs are added to a dynamic contemporary music lineup this year, with Declan McKenna, Nadine Shah and Lisa O’Neill joining a stellar array of performers that include Cat Power, Jordan Rakei, Chilly Gonzales and Bat for Lashes.
Under Festival Director Nicola Benedetti’s direction, a renewed focus on dialogue and debate initiates a new series of keynote talks from leading voices calling for change: Former Prime Minister the Rt Hon Gordon Brown, rapper and activist Akala and Caroline Criado Perez, best-selling author of Invisible Women. Further information about speakers found below.
Cast additions for several International Festival staged shows include The Fifth Step, where Sean Gilder joins Jack Lowden in the world premiere play at The Lyceum from 21-25 August; and Isis Hainsworth, Paul Brennan, Ros Watt and Alison Fitzjohn join the cast of The Outrun, which also makes its world premiere in August at the Churchill Theatre from 3-25 August.
Former Scottish Opera emerging artist Shengzhi Ren takes centre stage as Oedipus, King of Thebes, in the cast of Oedipus Rex. Joining him in this promenade opera staged in the National Museum of Scotland’s Grand Gallery are Kitty Whately, Roland Wood, Callum Thorpe and Emyr Wyn Jones. Additional tickets for the production are now available.
As part of the International Festival’s ambition to become cultural convenors in neighbourhoods and healthcare settings across Edinburgh, a range of events will bring artists into new spaces across the city.
Space @ The Broomhouse Hub becomes the International Festival’s inaugural Community Connections Hub, following a city-wide call-out to community centres to engage in ongoing collaboration during festival season and throughout the year.
After interest from 22 community spaces from across the city, the first partnership with Space @ The Broomhouse Hub will see events and activities take place across the next 18 months, with an ambition to collaborate with more of these spaces in the coming years.
During August, Space @ The Broomhouse Hub hosts a free VR experience from 2024 resident orchestra the Philharmonia which runs from 19 – 24 August. This 360° experience of Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending makes its UK premiere and features Festival Director Nicola Benedetti as the solo violinist. In Virtual Reality, viewers are placed right at the heart of the orchestra to experience the performance in astonishing detail.
Audiences can also experience the performance live, as part of a relaxed Family Concert on Sunday 25 August at Usher Hall. The Family Concert is also live captioned and BSL interpreted by deaf musician Paul Whittaker, who will interpret the pieces of music as well as spoken text.
The first-ever Healing Arts Scotland also launches as part of the Edinburgh International Festival this year, a week-long celebration of arts and health events highlighting the joy they bring to those who take part, and their importance to the nation’s physical, mental and social health.
It is the first ever countrywide Healing Arts Week, following previous city-wide celebrations around the world, including New York, Paris, London, Venice and Jaipur, and is led by Scottish Ballet as part of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab’s global ‘Healing Arts’ campaign, in collaboration with the World Health Organisation.
The Healing Arts Scotland Opening Celebration event takes place on Monday 19th August at the Scottish Parliament as part of Edinburgh International Festival, featuring over 250 performers and participants from across Scotland in an energetic celebration of music and dance that captures the spirit and healing power of coming together through the performing arts.
Ensembles featured include Scottish Ballet, National Youth Pipe Band, TRYST, Oi Musica and SambaYaBamba Youth Street Band.
Scottish Ballet will present a specially commissioned dance piece featuring an ensemble cast of community performers, including Scottish Ballet’s Youth Exchange company, NHS staff, Dance Base’s PRIME Elders Dance company and Dance for Parkinson’s Scotland group.
The work will be performed to the song Mackay’s Memoirs by the late Scottish Celtic fusion artist Martyn Bennett, which celebrates its 25th anniversary – it was originally commissioned for the opening of the Scottish Parliament building on 1 July 1999.
2024 International Festival artists are also performing across Edinburgh in four NHS hospitals in August. In partnership with NHS Lothian Charity: Tonic Arts, the performance series brings Festival artists into Edinburgh hospitals, creating bespoke moments of musical and creative connections.
Every Friday during August, artists will perform in hospitals including the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People and the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, delighting audiences who may not be able to experience International Festival performances in traditional venues. This is part of a year-round programme of monthly music moments in hospitals across Edinburgh and Lothian.
In another outdoor series of performances, the Usher Hall takes the festival experience from the stage to the open-air, with pop-up performances across August. Groups such as Commotion (Edinburgh Women Samba Drummers), the Edinburgh Samba School’s TESS group, Rainbow Ukes and Southside Strummers ukelele groups will light up the Usher Hall forecourt, in a series of free encounters with music makers from across the community.
Edinburgh International Festival Director, Nicola Benedetti, said: “The Edinburgh International Festival has always been proud to provide a platform for some of the most exciting voices in music, performance and thought leadership.
“Over 77 years, this original festival that started it all, has brought people of different cultures and viewpoints together to share, debate and exchange ideas through art, and this year’s no exception.
“Our inaugural Community Connections Hub, NHS Festival Fridays and the world-first Healing Arts Scotland week are a perfect example of the Festival bringing together communities and ideas in spaces and places outside of a theatre in August.
“Art has the power to transform, and I encourage everyone to seize this opportunity to come together and be thrilled, challenged, and discover something new.”
Scottish Ballet CEO/Artistic Director, Christopher Hampson said:”Healing Arts Scotland 2024 will be an inspirational week-long celebration of the huge impact the arts has on the nation’s health and well-being.
“Scottish Ballet is proud to be leading on this global outreach project in collaboration with the WHO and a host of partner organisations such as Edinburgh International Festival. I’m really excited about the largescale participation performance taking place outside Scottish Parliament – it will be a true testament to all the wonderful arts health work that happens every day across Scotland.”
Neil Hay, CEO, Space @ The Broomhouse Hub said: “The inaugural Community Connections Hub is fantastic news for Broomhouse and Southwest Edinburgh.
“This partnership will open up the Edinburgh International Festival to new audiences, allowing local people and families to enjoy cultural experiences our communities don’t normally access.
“We look forward to seeing all the exciting things the partnership will bring this summer and the coming year.”
More about the 2024 International Festival artists and speakers:
Declan McKenna, 12 August at Edinburgh Playhouse
Vibrant indie-pop protagonist Declan McKenna is set to make his dazzling Edinburgh International Festival debut at just 25.
Following his breakthrough win at Glastonbury Festival’s Emerging Talent competition in 2015, McKenna now has three critically acclaimed albums under his belt, and will perform songs from his latest, What Happened to The Beach?
Nadine Shah, 22 August at the Queen’s Hall
Mercury Prize nominee Nadine Shah adds profound depth to the International Festival’s contemporary lineup with her powerful voice, socio-political lyrics and a unique blend of jazz, post-punk, and indie rock.
She comes to The Queen’s Hall stage after an explosive start to 2024 supporting Depeche Mode on an arena tour and the release of fifth studio album, Filthy Underneath.
Lisa O’Neill, 21 August at the Queen’s Hall
A striking voice on the Irish folk scene for the last 10 years, Lisa O’Neill brings her distinct blend of folk tradition and contemporary nuance to Edinburgh. A raconteur in the truest sense of the word, O’Neill inimitable voice is raw and loaded with emotion, as evidenced in latest record All of This Is Chance.
Her remarkable adaptation of Bob Dylan’s ‘All the Tired Horses’ soundtracked the final scene of epic TV drama Peaky Blinders.
Former Prime Minister the Rt Hon Gordon Brown, 25 August at the Festival Theatre
In a keynote speaking event, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the Rt Hon Gordon Brown imagines a world where peace and fairness are the order of the day. He explores the connections between his imagined future and the International Festival’s founding vision.
Now serving as the UN Special Envoy for Global Education and the WHO Ambassador for Global Health Financing, a passion for global access to education, healthcare and improved living standards continues to motivate everything he does.
Caroline Criado Perez, 18 August at the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh
Award-winning author and activist Caroline Criado Perez’s work is centred around meaningful change. Her campaign work spans across the physical and digital realm, achieving real results from petitioning for a female historical figure on Bank of England banknotes, to getting the first statue of a woman (Millicent Fawcett) in Parliament Square, London.
Following her best-selling book Invisible Women, Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, Criado Perez delves into her continuing research on how to leverage the transformative power of accurate data, and what it takes to create a world that works for all.
Akala, 10 August at the Festival Theatre
From activist to hip-hop artist to social entrepreneur, Akala is a true polymath with a constantly evolving career. He speaks on a wide range of topics, including race, British and African-Caribbean culture, the arts, and music and youth engagement.
Natives, Akala’s 2018 memoir-polemic, discloses what it was like for him to grow up mixed race and working class in 1980s Britain, linking his own testimony of structural racism with the history of colonialism and the British Empire’s damaging legacy. At the International Festival, Akala confronts home truths, and inspires us to challenge the status quo in a talk that embodies the need for us to unite.
All keynote events will have BSL interpretation and live captioning.
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