Exclusive:Edinburgh International Festival: Nicola Benedetti reveals plans for two-day Princes Street Gardens curtain raiser

Three pop-up stages will play host to young musicians

Nicola Benedetti has unveiled plans to give hundreds of young musicians a platform during a two-day takeover of Princes Street Gardens to launch her first programme as director of the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF).

Three pop-up stages will be erected across the west gardens for a celebration of “the joy of music-making” at the Opening Fanfare Weekend in August.

The two afternoon events, which are billed as an “open-air concert experience”, will feature everything from classical, brass band and orchestral music to choir singing, bagpiping and rapping.

Benedetti said she hoped the new events would help the festival forge stronger links with grass-roots music groups and organisations.

The Opening Fanfare Weekend, which is being funded to the tune of £50,000 by Scottish Government agency EventScotland, will also feature special performances from refugees and asylum seekers, including a Ukrainian choir.

A large temporary stage will be built for the Opening Fanfare Weekend celebration, which is likely to be the only major cultural event staged in West Princes Street Gardens in August due to the poor condition of the historic Ross Bandstand and council curbs on the number of events allowed in the park throughout the year.

Benedetti said: “We’re definitely looking at making more use of key under-used, historic venues in future. But it has to be for the right thing and they have to be used in the right way.

Nicola Benedetti has launched her first programme as director of the Edinburgh International Festival. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovic

"Princes Street Gardens is a stunning part of the city. It has that beauty, grandeur and open access. You can also occupy a number of different spaces.

“It’s the feeling that you bring to those spaces that will impact on the experiences that people are going to have.

“For me, it will be a symbolic moment this year to show the festival’s interest in a continuing relationship to community arts making across Scotland and people who have dedicated decades of their lives to making sure that people have the opportunity to come together, do something creative together and create something beautiful together.

"It will be symbolic to have that representation from around the country and to work with organisations and people who have such huge hearts and such dedication to creating opportunities for young people.

The Grit Orchestra will be performing at this year's Edinburgh International Festival. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovic

“We want to showcase what they do all year round and give them the opportunity to feel they are part of something collective, come together and create something that has an anthemic feel and play into all the different sounds that are both Scottish and universal.”

The programme will involve the Edinburgh-based Tinderbox Orchestra, a collective of rappers, singers, and string, brass and woodwind musicians. Students from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, the National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland and the National Youth Brass Bands of Scotland will also be involved.

Intercultural Youth Scotland, which works with young black people and people of colour, Edinburgh-based Drake Music Scotland, which works with people with disabilities, and Musicians in Exile, a Glasgow-based group that brings together refugees and asylum seekers in the city to play music, will contribute.

The two-day celebration will culminate in an appearance by a 80-strong Grit Orchestra, which was formed several years ago to reimagine the music of trailblazing musician and composer Martyn Bennett. Mr Bennett is a former Edinburgh music school student whose work was performed in Princes Street Gardens when the Scottish Parliament was reconvened in 1999.

West Princes Street Gardens will be transformed for a two-day celebration of 'the joy of music-making.' Picture: Ryan Buchanan

Benedetti said: “The festival is a beacon of excellence in the arts, there is no question about that. We're the place where visiting international artists will be seen and experienced in Scotland. That is an offer for the people of Scotland.

"But Scotland is highly creative too. Our connection with people is not just as a consumer of concerts and a purchaser of tickets.

"The relationship we want to build with the largest possible number of those people who are making music on a non-professional or youth level is much deeper than that. It’s something we are invested in for the long term. I see the weekend in Princes Street Gardens as a kind of kick-start to that more personal relationship.”

Benedetti’s predecessor, Fergus Linehan, introduced free large-scale events to herald the start of the festival. These included outdoor concerts at Tynecastle Park football stadium and Murrayfield, the home of Scottish rugby.

Benedetti said: “There will be a hybrid element around the opening weekend that will be different this year. It's going to be an interesting period of transition.

“We will not in any way compromise on absolute professionalism, and the highest possible quality and level of performance. But in the gardens, the social gathering will meld with the ultra-high level of the art, a sense of community and conversation.

West Princes Street Gardens will be transformed for a two-day celebration of 'the joy of music-making.' Picture: Gaelle Beri

“Our society is what we make of it and our community is what we make of it. The more that people feel the festival feels personally committed and involved in that, the more likely it will be that people will not just see it as being about buying tickets.

"What we listen to, what we talk about, how we interact with the arts and how we collectively create the future of our stories is a matter of identity and national pride.”

The Opening Fanfare Weekend will be the EIF’s first event in the gardens by the EIF since its last fireworks finale in 2019. It emerged earlier this year that the fireworks event had been shelved, with a shortage of funding and the lack of a sponsor blamed for its absence this summer.

The EIF will instead be staging the first event in Charlotte Square Garden since the book festival’s relocation across its final weekend, when recordings of concerts from this year’s programme will be broadcast into the green space.

Benedetti said: “We're trying to give people an experience to come and gather together in a casual way. We’re working towards what the fireworks concert represented for people.

"It was a picnic affair, it was really relaxed. People could just rock up and do their own thing, and it could be experienced from different parts of the city. We’re working towards being able to provide that environment.

"We can't do absolutely everything. There’s only so much resource that we have. It’s always a question of difficult choices. But there is an appetite to create that kind of environment.”