CROWDS flocking to the traditional climax to Edinburgh's summer festival season tomorrow have been told to brace themselves for a new twist – silent fireworks.
Specially commissioned new devices will be deployed by the pyrotechnic experts behind the displays at the Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert on Sunday.
Organisers say they will used to complement quieter passages of music at the event, which tradi
tionally attracts a quarter of a million people to various vantage points around the capital.
Fireworks artists Wilf Scott and Keith Webb, of Pyrovision, will have spent six days laying out around 100,000 fireworks before the display – the biggest in Europe – gets under way.
Fireworks are being set up on 17 different levels of Edinburgh Castle, from the highest ramparts to along the top of the castle rock.
Mr Webb said: "We're using these silent fireworks for the first time in a major display. This is the most important display we do in this country, so it's a good chance to showcase new material.
"If there's a quiet passage of music, it seems a bit pointless to shoot lots of noisy fireworks up in the sky. So we will have these very soft fireworks lighting up the sky when the violins come in.
"The music is very bubbly, with lots of stops and starts. We're trying to use the fireworks to highlight the individual notes.
"It's a very precise question of timing. It might take two to six seconds for a shell to burst in the sky, so we have to work out exactly when to set it off."
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Romanian-born Nicolae Moldo-veanu, will be performing Slavonic Dances by Dvorák and Hungarian Dances by Brahms at the final Edinburgh International Festival concert, which is scheduled to start at 9pm.
Jonathan Mills, the festival director, said: "The Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert is a spectacular way to celebrate the end of the festival season.
"There's a fantastic atmosphere in Princes Street Gardens, and across the city, where crowds gather to watch the display."
The full article contains 352 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
